Unique Results of Unique Temperaments

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. - Oscar Wilde

In previous blog entries, I’ve shared how I used Wikispaces in conjunction with literature circles with my sixth grade students ) as well as how we used a Wikispace as a portfolio for a writing assignment. (see student produced J. Peterman Collection) In my first year attempting to work with Wikis, I was very pleased with how my colleague and I combined English Language Arts activities with Web 2.0 tools.

As educators, we are often challenged to celebrate the diversity and uniqueness of our students. This past year, my students embraced their wikprojects wholeheartedly, and I believe this was, in part, because we let them customize their space. The students were allowed to create appropriate home pages to reflect their own interests and personalities, however, they had to also create an ELA page to use for their literature responses.

Student examples: (click on their home page to TRULY see their personalities!)
Kelsey's Page
Emily's page
Brianna's Page
Jared's Page
Emily's Page

Looking to celebrate the unique temperaments of your students? Here are some fun, free, appropriate decorating tools that can be shared with students and used to customize a blog or wikispace.


Fancy Text, Fonts and Headings

http://www.cooltext.com
Hundreds of different fonts, sizes and shapes to choose from. Customize your heading and save the file as a .png, .jpg or other image file to be placed on your site.

http://www.glogster.com
Create and customize and entire unique poster to use on your site. Embed links into the poster.

http://www.glitteryourway.com
More fancy, animated, glittery text.


Widgets and Other Interactive Items

http://www.poodwaddle.com/free.htm
Includes clocks, calculators, calendars and other widgets

http://www.clocklink.com
Many cool interesting clocks

http://widgets.bestmoodle.net/scripts/onthisday.htm
This automatically updates with information on what happened on the current date.

http://widgets.bestmoodle.net
Includes a bumper sticker widget along with MANY other great choices.

http://www.widgetbox.com
Choose from a gallery of widgets, or for the TRULY clever, create your own!

http://www.voki.com/
This clever site creates a talking character. You can design yourself or just about any other type of character that you can imagine. You can also phone in and record your voice to make the voki talk!!

http://www.toondoo.com/
Create a customized multi-panel cartoon.

Free Clipart and Animations

http://classroomclipart.com/
Nice, free appropriate clipart images

http://www.teacherfiles.com/free_word_art.htm
Create your own heading like the one at the top of this page!

http://www.imagechef.com/ic/banner/
Create an ANIMATED title for your wikispace

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/
Great clipart - some animations

http://www.school-clip-art.com/border_clipart.shtml
More school related clipart

http://www.imagechef.com
Customize images like this one and embed the html code!!

Avatars

Create a character: http://www.toondoo.com/Traitr.do
Customize a cartoon character and place the picture on your site.

http://www.doppelme.com/
Create a cartoon avatar character that can be placed as an image on your site.

http://illustmaker.abi-station.com/index_en.shtml
More choices for cartoon avatars that you can create.

Visuwords Can Be...

Visuwords is one of several interactive thesaurus applications that I’ve seen made available via the web. The basic concept of a visual thesaurus is to provide people with an interactive, online way to explore words and related words. After playing with the application, I’ve developed a few immediate uses for it in the classroom in conjunction with word study or vocabulary activities.



Visuwords can be:

(1) Used as a dictionary---If you hover over the key search word, it will provide a definition.
(2) Used to help locate related or word substitutes (synonyms) as in a typical thesaurus.
(3) Used for Grammar, Usage and Mechanics reinforcement. The color coding in the circle shows the part of speech of each word, Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb. Students can recognize when a word WILL fit in a sentence as it is a similar part of speech, and when it will not.
(4) Used to give a great deal of exposure to process words like, is an instance of, is similar to, pertains to, attributes, opposes.
(5) A method for providing “also see” options that allow them to explore similar words.
(6) A way of exposing users to attributes which can reinforce character trait exploration in reading studies. i.e., other words for friendly include: congenial, social, companionable, affable, amiable.
(7) Used to show the derivation of a word which will help with word studies and word roots.
(8) Used to show opposites which can lead to a discussion of antonyms.
(9) Used to show word roots and the relationships between words with Latin and Greek roots.

Capture your screen in seconds

Other applications with similar features include:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

http://www.wordsift.com

What to do about Bing

The search overload commercials are entertaining AND on point to say the least. The name sounds like a preppy frat boy name, an iconic singer or the sound that rain makes as it splatters down on a metal roof. Compelling name, or not, it’s here, that new ‘decision engine’ that has been launched by Microsoft. A search engine called Bing.

Bing.com has been around now for a couple of months, and truly has not had much of an impact on me personally. I’ve viewed it, used it intermittently, but not much about the application has knocked my socks off or changed the way I search for information. Quite frankly, with a well built PLN (Personal Learning Network) and access to a wealth of well searched links through del.icio.us, I’ve found myself using Google less and less, so what use do I have for another search engine?

The element that sets Bing apart is ‘that picture’. My son eagerly logs on to Bing each day JUST to see ‘that picture’. The images they’ve presented have been stunning. From Cambodian Shadow puppets to Giant Pandas to Pyramids in Sudan, the images expose us to landmarks, creatures, traditions and other amazing sights from around the world. But the pictures are more than just a picture, they are informative and interactive. As you hover your mouse around different sections of the photos, Bing has embedded links to factual information about the pictures. Links that direct you sites related to the images.

As an educator I think I’ve decided what to do about this new tool that has been provided to me. I teach Social Studies to Grade 6 students. Living in a rather enclosed suburban community, one of the challenges we face is exposing students to the large multicultural world that exists outside of their small community. Bing seems to be a terrific step in that direction. Presenting an image from Bing on a regular basis in the classroom, and sharing with students the facts associated with those photos would be a great way to expand their world. Whether I encourage them to explore it independently and provide them with an essential question to research, or simply expose them to the site and image routinely I believe it has value as an educational tool.

Above all else, Microsoft gave it a memorable name. Hopefully that sound, ‘Bing’ will be the sound of new information, new connections and a new world awareness that occurs in my students as they explore this new resource on their own.

Possible Projects with Post-It Motion

Recently I watched a very clever stop-motion animation using Post It Notes. Hoping to capitalize on the enthusiasm that kids seem to have for stop motion animation, I thought I'd give it a try myself. My goal is to eventually try this technique in my classroom. A recent tweet by RusselTarr, (@russeltarr Poem generator - could be fun to use in class - http://tinyurl.com/pl9vk2.) gave me the impetus to try a stop motion post-it project with a poetry flavor.

Materials:

Digital camera
Tripod
Clear wall space (I used my refrigerator door)
One packet of post-it notes
One black marker
Glue stick
1 G Memory card

Software:

Windows Movie Maker
Audacity

Websites:

Great for sound effects.
http://www.ilovewavs.com/

Shorts clips, can be looped. Great for background music.
http://www.accelerated-ideas.com/FreeMusicTracks/aiSearchTracks.aspx?style=Arts

My video:



As you can tell from the video, this was VERY experimental. My objective was to see how difficult a project this would be. I didn’t storyboard the concept, I basically just experimented as I went along. I nudged each post-it about 1 centimeter per photo and as the adhesive on the post-it begain to wear off, I found that the glue stick came in VERY useful. Believe it or not, I managed to get by with a total of 11 post-it notes. At the final tally, I took approximately 225 photos to achieve this 55 second clip.

The toughest part was locating suitable music and timing it to the pictures in MovieMaker. I used Audacity and compared the track to the timing in Moviemaker as I went along and noted the timeframe at which my sounds would come along.

Do I think this project is feasible in the classroom—ABSOLUTELY. Not only that, my own children were very enthusiastic and curious about the process and proceeded to make their own stop-motion videos after I finished.

A Baker’s Dozen -- Ideas for Stop Motion Use in English Language Arts

1. Focus on the ROOT (Greek, Latin or other) of a word and the words that can be derived from it. Write words on post it notes and add or subtract words that are come from a similar root.
2. Use post-it notes to show how adding prefixes and suffixes to words changes them.
3. Create an alphabet story.
4. Pick a word to create other words from.
5. Pick a word and show how that word can create an entire SENTENCE from one main word. **bonus if that main word is the subject of the sentence!.
6. Create rebuseswith words and symbols that make up another word.
7. Focus on Compound words. Show one word on a post-it note, add another word and then show they blend to create a new word.
8. Use storyboarding and pictures to create a story. Have students use the interactive: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/plot-diagram/ to show the plot curve.
9. Have students create Word Operations as featured in WordsTheirWay For example: ANIMAL – L + ATE = ANIMATE
10. Have students demonstrate a spelling word sort through stop motion.
11. Practice spelling words written on post-its via short stop motion animations – show and share with one another.
12. Practice sentence structure (or sentence stretchers) by writing a short sentence and then expanding it. Use the post-it notes like magnetic poetry (or use magnetic poetry instead!)

An Online Image Option for the Classroom

As part of a unit on landform studies in my Social Studies class, I wanted students to be able to identify, in an authentic way, the various landforms that we were featuring in our unit of study. One challenge I faced was that any image I found and attempted to photocopy or reproduce for a worksheet was greatly compromised in the process. These poor quality images forced me to rely on vocabulary words and definitions to teach the concept rather than creating a visual connection to the landform that I wanted the students to learn. To solve this problem, I searched for images that represented different landforms that I needed my students to know.

There are MANY image warehouses available on the internet. I used flickr for many of the landform pictures. GoogleEarth also provided great views of larger landforms that I was able to screen capture.





Uploading each picture into Picasa (one of many online photo storage sites) allowed me to house the collection of pictures in one location. Instead of including comments about each picture, I typed the definition of the landform in the comments section.

As an assessment, I had the students log onto Picasa with a numbered worksheet and a word bank. They then needed to look at each landform, read the definition and write the word on their worksheet.

This type of lesson could be adapted to MANY different content areas that involve recognizing and identifying a location, image, landmark, invention, person, etc.

Here are some materials that I utilize to teach Landforms.

(1) Follow this link for access to a Word file in Scribd that lists many landforms and provides students with an opportunity to explore the definition through multi-modalities. http://www.scribd.com/doc/19950040/Land-Forms


(2) In conjunction with the document, use this list to explore EACH landform. Simply cut and paste the location into GoogleEarth and it will zoom directly to that landform. In instances where the landform cannot be explored through GoogleEarth, click the link for a photo. http://www.k12.ginet.org/webpages/mhoward/social.cfm?subpage=10058

(3) Play “Geography Rocks” bingo as a review of the landforms. Use pebbles or small rocks as bingo chips. Follow this link for access to a bingo board as a Word file in Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/19683896/Geography-Rocks-Board.



(3) This Picasa photo album provides a picture of each landform along with a definition of each landform: http://picasaweb.google.com/Mrs.Mary.Howard.118/GeographicalTermsLandforms#

(4) Follow this link for access to a Word file in Scribd that can be used along with the Picasa photo album. http://www.scribd.com/doc/17436316/Land-Forms-Quiz

Adventures in Geocaching

Adventures in Geocaching

For those that aren’t familiar with the term Geocaching, it basically breaks down like this. Geo is the Greek root for earth and cache is a place for hiding, storing, or preserving treasure or supplies. Therefore, the noun, Geocache refers to the a hidden treasure on earth that you might find while performing the verb Geocaching. In essence, Geocaching is high-tech treasure hunting whereby you search for a hidden item by following latitude and longitude coordinates using a handheld Global Positioning System (GPS). The person that has hidden the cache provides the coordinates to the location.

I stumbled upon this activity several years ago quite accidentally when I was traveling in Alaska (considered a muggle at the time--a non-geocaching native). My husband and I were hiking in the Tongass National Forest in Ketchikan and found a father and his son huddled around a cache in the form of an ammobox hidden in the woods. They were busily recording their visit in a travel log as we spotted them.


Since that time, my Geocaching adventures have led me all throughout my island neighborhood as well as around to world attempting to find hidden treasures with my family. As an educator, I was convinced that there must be some way to implement this exciting and interesting activity in my classroom. I simply knew that the inherent excitement in discovering something hidden would be a natural draw for students.

Geocaching CAN be implemented in the classroom without an exorbitant outlay of money, time or energy. Below are some ideas and suggestions for ways to integrate geocaching into ANY content area’s curriculum

Idea #1: Create a class Travel Bug and deposit it into a local cache. Follow the bug’s journey and map the route.
http://www.geocaching.com/track/faq.aspx
http://maptrot.com/

Idea #2: During a field trip, take a side trip to a nearby cache.
http://www.geocaching.com

Idea #3: Plant a class cache and watch as visitors log in from all over. Create a map documenting visitors.
http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php

Idea #4: Research the history of local landmarks. Create a cache at a location that describes the history of that site.
http://sites.arnold.k12.ne.us/gswingle/stories/storyReader$4

Idea #5: Investigate and locate Earthcaches via Google Earth
http://rock.geosociety.org/earthcache/earthcache.aspx

Idea #6: Participate in a Geolit Project or Webquest
http://www.geolit.org/
http://www.fallriverschools.org/geocachewebquest.html

Idea #7: Conduct a GPS Scavenger Hunt or Hide N Seek on your school property
http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classgpslsn.html
http://lovinfifth.com/gps/GPS-activities.htm

Idea #8: Identify different varieties of trees in a nature preserve (or on your school grounds) and record their coordinates. Then challenge other students to find the trees given specific coordinates.

Idea #9: Create a cultural cache. Fill a cache with items reflecting your region. Encourage visitors to log their reaction/responses to share with your class.

Other GREAT Geocaching Resources
http://www.geocaching.com This site provides a WEALTH of information on geocaching. Membership allows you to access locations to geocaches worldwide.

http://www.eduscapes.com/geocaching/kids.htm This site provides a good definition of geocaching as well as some terrific nature connections with Geocaching.

http://education.usgs.gov/common/lessons/geocaching_gisitr04t.pdf This printable file was an alien encounter Geocaching contest. The ideas could be helpful for building your own similar type activity.

http://geocats.blogspot.com/ A blog dedicated to geocaching experiences.

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/savannah Futurelab, transforming the way people learn through innovative technology and practice, provides a look at a Geocaching project called Savannah where a virtual space is mapped directly onto a real space

http://www.esstt.rnu.tn/utic/tica2007/sys_files/medias/docs/p28.pdf This article examines geocaching in education

http://www.trimble.com/gps/index.shtml A great tutorial on the ins and outs of geocaching.

http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/gps.htm This site evaluates different models of GPS handheld systems.

http://teacherlink.org/content/math/activities/gps.html Mathematic connections and lessons with GPS systems.

http://www.gis2gps.com/GPS/lessonplans/gpsplans.htm More great lesson plans and geocaching ideas

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocode GPS Visualizer – finding latitude and longitude coordinates in your area

http://rmmcweb.cr.usgs.gov/outreach/gps.html Great tips, lessons and ideas from USGS.

Geocaching can be a wonderful tool to enhance student understanding of geography, location and place, science and nature, scientific inquiry, mathematical concepts, physical education, problem solving, teamwork, critical thinking as well as language arts activities.

Web 2.0 Tools to Assist Student Research

Conducting focused research is often an insurmountable task when you ask a young student to begin exploring the vast resources available via the internet. A stuent's first unguided attempt to find data to support a topic that they are researching may seem overwhelming. Even with the most focused of thesis statement, most search engines will still expose students to millions of sites that would require endless hours for them to sift through.

In addition to the challenge of the number of sites a typical search may bring up, there is also the challenge of discovering materials relevant and appropriate to their research. Even with vigilant software controls preventing inappropriate content, students are still given access to sites with too much content and many times too high of a reading level. Exacerbating the problem is the challenge of keeping track of all of the sites that they come across in the course of their research.

Finally, the writing process alone is a challenge. Ensuring that a student is producing an organized focused paper and providing constructive feedback to that student as well as encouraging peer to peer feedback is a challenge that any teacher may face.

The focus of this blog is to provide recommendations and guidelines for student research and to introduce some VERY useful new technology tools that may assist students in the research process.

Recommendation #1. Help student develop a focused thesis statement (topic statement) BUT ALSO ensure they develop a list of keywords to help them search.

http://www.eyeplorer.com/
This is a graphical knowledge engine that allows the user to enter a keyword and the engine will discover keywords (initiated through wikipedia).

http://www.wordsift.com
Wordsift will evaluate a student’s research topic and/or thesis statement and sift the words based on most utilized words. It then activates a visual thesaurus with related words and a google image search of related images.

http://www.wordwebonline.com/
An online dictionary and thesaurus

http://thesaurus.reference.com/
Online dictoonary and thesaurus including visual thesaurus


#2. Note taking is DIFFICULT The first step in research requires a great deal of sifting through websites for the student to find just what they want. They are also easily distracted! A bookmarking site is great to help streamline and focus their search attempts as well as for providing opportunities to record their thoughts and highlight important information.

http://www.diigo.com/ - Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other Stuff
Diigo works as a bookmarking site to save, tag and share websites that they have found useful, but it also allows students to highlight parts of a webpage as well as write and attach stickynotes to the pages. They can also leave comments about the bookmarked page and communicate/collaborate with other students.

http://marro.ws/
This site works like a box to obtain clippings of pieces of information from various websites that may be applicable to the student’s research. Text can be copied and pasted into a box to be saved or shared. Be careful, however, there seems to be no way to cite sources if you clip something from somewhere else!

www.del.icio.us
This is another bookmarking site that requires registration to be use. Similar to diigo, it allows students to save, tag and share websites that they have found.

www.bonzobox.com (with bonzo buddy messaging/sharing)
Yet another bookmarking site, BonzoBox saves websites as real-time images. This site has great appeal for students as it allows sharing and collecting of websites and resources in a fun and interactive way.

http://www.HeyPasteIt. HeyPasteIt provides a great spot for students to place temporary notes and information.

#3. Help students organize their information

http://www.text2mindmap.com
This application allows you to visually represent an outline as a map (like visualthesaurus). Allows students to visualize the relationship between sections in their research project and related concepts. Can be saved as a .jpg file

http://www.mindomo.com & http://www.wisemapping.com
This free mindmapping tools require a login but can be used to establish a framework for the topics to be included in a research paper. Can be shared or embedded.

http://www.gliffy.com
More of a flowchart/diagram type of application, this can perform more advanced relationships between topics or help establish a flowchart to represent a paper.

http://bubbl.us
Free mindmapping software that can be used to establish a framework for the topics to be included in a research paper. Can be shared or embedded. Very user friendly interface. NO ACCOUNT NEEDED.

http://www.dropmind.com & http://www.lovelycharts.com

Great for flowcharts and diagrams. Terrific user interface with dynamic images. An account is necessary but the potential for a dynamic attractive finished product is wonderful.

http://www.mind42.com
This is a great outline tool for creating a map to visually represent a paper. What is outstanding about this one is the ability to add images, links and notes to certain sections of the map. This would be a great way to monitor student progress through their research as the map is developed, they can update their progress through certain sections.

#4. Provide opportunities for writing, editing and collaborating

http://www.zohowriter.com
Zoho Writer is a collaborative editor that lets students create and share documents. Very user friendly and supports several file formats as well as 20 different fonts. Free. Login required.

http://www.Etherpad.com
Etherpad is a notepad style space that allows text to be copied into it (no formatting). Each space has a unique url and students can invite up to 8 guests to meet in that space for collaboration. Collaboration is real time and it includes a chat function which is WELL received by students. Each edit is tracked via a specific color.

http://www.Writeboard.com
Write, share, revise, compare. This web-based editor allows students to write online documents and collaborate with peers. Free. Login required.


http://docs.google.com/
Google Docs allows students to create text documents and presentations. All of the basic functions of a word processor are included and you can upload files. It is possible to invite people and work on files collaboratively; additionally, you can publish your documents and spreadsheets online with one click, as normal-looking web pages. Free to use. Google account required.

For a comprehensive source of search engines for students, see: http://www.teach-nology.com/mega_search/10_search_engines/

Podcast - Year in Review Project

Podcasting – Year in Review Project One annual project that has become very dear to me is the Year in Review Podcasting project. This project began based on an idea generated at our high school to create a review podcast to help students prepare for their global studies regents exam. In an effort to simulate that activity and to provide the students with a review experience, we conceived of a podcast project that would summarize one unit of study (from Social Studies) that we had covered throughout the year. The objective was to create a product that could be used to present to the students next year that would summarize and provide highlights to an upcoming unit. This project is a multi-step project culminating in a sharing activity where finalized student podcasts are shared with the rest of class—what a TERRIFIC way to end the year.

Here, step by step, is how we did it.

What is a Podcast?

(iPOD broadCAST) An audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. The "pod" in podcast was taken from "iPod," a portable, digital music player, and although podcasts are mostly verbal, they may contain music, dialogue and even pictures.

The Process

Step #1:

-Choose a topic that you wish to Podcast about and brainstorm suitable vocabulary.

Step #2: Obtain lyrics. Begin to write out your narrative, Music, lyrics, Poem or Dialogue. Some good lyric websites include: www.lyrics.com, www.azlyrics.com -I provided students with the following list of songs and lyrics to chose from to streamline the process a bit.

Step #3: Plan slides/images that match your narrative (be sure to record your sources in Noodlebib!)

Step #4: Get your music!! I like to use http://www.freemidi.org to download and save midi files of my choice, then I use http://www.Media-Convert.com to change the.midi file format to an .mp3 format. The files I used are here: http://www.k12.ginet.org/webpages/mhoward/podcast.cfm

Step #5: Open Audacity and open your new .mp3 file. You can play this music or click on the red dot to record with your music. YOU WILL NEED A MICROPHONE! Use this link to download YOUR OWN version of the free Audacity software: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ also obtain lameencoder file at http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Lame_Installation

How to Use Audacity:

Free online screencasting tool

Step #6: Export your finalized Audacity file as an .mp3 file.

Step #7: Select/Upload images and Audio (.mp3) file into Moviemaker.

Step #8: Modify the timing of the images to match the timing in the sound file.

Step #9: Finish your movie by saving onto your computer as a .wmv file. Use this link to convert your file to a .MOV or .MP4 for use on an i-pod or apple computer: http://www.Media-Convert.com

Those darned cellphones. Do they have a place in the classroom?

As intermediate and secondary teachers, we gnash our teeth over the cell phone debate. "Should I allow cellphones in the classroom?" "Why am I disparaging students with phones? "Am I opening pandora's box if I allow cellphones in my classroom?"

As this debate rages on (sometimes beyond our control), I am suggesting that there are effective and useful options for utilizing the cellphone in the classroom (yes really!!) Many dollars have been invested in the 'clicker' technology to meet students on a level that they are familiar with and at a level that sincerely engages them. But why not embrace the technology that they come to the table with? Why not allow a student to utilize what they are comfortable with as a method for assessment (both formative and summative) or as a method for collaboration and communication?

While surveying polling options via the Internet one day, I found an intriguing site. www.polleverywhere.com, and I wondered why this particular application couldn't be utilized in the classroom. Polleverywhere.com provides instant feedback
to survey questions by asking respondents to text their selection to a given text messaging number provided within the website. Feedback based on respondent results is given immediately (sounds a little like the CPS system or 'clickers' to those that have used them) Not to diminish the effectiveness of clickers in the classroom, I've used them and enjoyed the results, but we have students possessing a powerful technology in their sometimes grubby :) little hands, why don't we use it as a tool for learning?

I myself do not have an effective cell phone that utilizes the more advanced options such as utilizing twitter or Internet access, but there are those that do. If twittering were allowed in school, students could be put in groups (with one sophisticated cellphone user per group) and the groups could interact and twitter responses to questions via their group cell phone. This solves the problem of 'everyone' having the most sophisticated phone and yet again allows the students to use the tools that they come to the table with.

Do you have an opinion? Have you tried to use cellphones in the classroom? Did it work? Why, Why Not? Please let me know your experience or thoughts!

Using Word Art in Vocabulary Instruction

Inviting students to adopt and utilize a rich vocabulary was one of my primary objectives as a sixth grade teacher. In this regard, I adopted (and experimented) with several strategies within the classroom--some time tested, some experimental. In the end, I felt as though my students excelled in their comfort with and use of vocabulary. Below are some of those strategies:

#1. An Interactive Word Wall

I created a 'bank' of words printed on coins that the students could use--not much )different from an everyday word wall, right? Well, the difference was that the wall was interactive. Each time I "caught" a student using one of the words, they were
invited to press the nose on the pig. Underneath the nose was a button that made an oinking sound. (A special thank you goes out to the stuffed pig that sacrificed it's life for this oinker)

Make a poster out of this image at: http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/


#2. Words of the Week (W.O.W) Words
About 2 - 3 times a week, the student bellwork was vocabulary. A sentence was displayed on the Smartboard with the W.O.W. word underlined. The sentences contained context clues as an embedded skill for them to attempt to figure out what the word meant. After writing the sentence and making their prediction, we clicked a link to wordcentral.com and evaluated the definition, part of speech, clicked on the speaker to hear someone else say the word, came up with a group definition and looked at the word derivation (latin, greek, middle english). The students continued by creating a word association (an image or mnemonic), synonyms, antonyms and then write their own sentence with the word being sure to use a context clue within their own sentence. This worksheet is available at my scribd documents: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15792200/Saw


#3. Word Art

Occasionally, we had a word that elicited particular imagery for the students-one that they connected to quite well. In these cases, we had the students create word art for those images. Word art requires the students to write the vocabulary word in large letters on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and then illustrate each letter of the word in a way that represents the meaning. The instructions for this activity area available at my scribd documents: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15792401/Word-Art
Special thanks to my colleague, Jillian Schneider, for this idea!


TECHNOLOGY CONNECTION: I recently discovered wordahead.com which allows, in a technological way, what I've been doing on paper all of this time. My objective next year is to take the students word art images and upload/share them on wordahead.com.


#4. I Used It Slips.

Each week, I would allow students to write up an example of a vocabulary word that they used in their everyday lives (or found in their pleasure reading books). On fridays, five winning slips were drawn and students would share the word and the sentence/situation in which they used it or found it. These slips are available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15792348/Wow-Bookmark-Only