Reading Bear

Reading Bear

Learn to Read for Free!

I am a BIG fan of phonics.  It sets a solid foundation for a love of reading.   As a substitute teacher and tutor, most students who struggled with reading had not been taught a basic grasp of phonics.   My own husband went to a elementary school which did not teach phonics.    It has affected his ability to spell his entire life.

Reading Bear, a project of WatchKnowLearn.org, is the first free program online to teach beginning readers vocabulary and concepts while systematically introducing all the main phonetic patterns of written English, all using innovative rich media.   Currently there are 14 presentations, but they furiously working to increase the number to about 50.  

By the end, well over 1,200 items of vocabulary will be given the Reading Bear treatment.  

How does it work? In each presentation—playable either as a video or as an interactive slide show—one or a few related “phonics rules” are presented.   Presentations are available in seven different versions. In the fullest version, we sound out a word slowly and quickly, then blend it slowly, and finally (after an optional prompt) blend it quickly. As sounds are pronounced, the corresponding letters are highlighted. Then we display a picture illustrating the word, show a sentence (with the individual sounds again highlighted, karaoke style), and finally show a video illustrating the sentence. Presentations typically give this treatment to around 25 words, though some have more and some have less. The result is a thorough yet painless introduction to phonics principles, while at the same time teaching vocabulary.


Watch this video for even more explanation

Interactives. Elements of a Story

Interactives - Elements of a Story uses the story of Cinderella as a model for learning about the elements of a story. To use this interactive students select any element of the story; setting, character, sequence, exposition, conflict, climax, or resolution then read and listen to an explanation of that element of the story. After they have worked through all of the elements of the story, they can take a quiz to test their knowledge.

Despite the fact that it uses a fairy tale, Cinderella, this is a resource that is accessible to elementary school, middle school, and high school students. Although the graphics are clearly aimed toward elementary school students, this could certainly be a review resource for older students.

NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program

My friend told me about the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program.  We are using it as our writing program for this semester.    NaNoWriMo offers amazing workbooks to prepare students for November.   They offered for free and are written for elementary, middle school and high school students.  
 

National Novel Writing Month happens every November! It's a fun, seat-of-your-pants writing event where the challenge is to complete an entire novel in just 30 days. For one month, you get to lock away your inner editor, let your imagination take over, and just create!  That means participants begin writing November 1 and must finish by midnight, November 30.   The Young Writers Program (YWP) allows 17-and-under participants to set reasonable, yet challenging, individual word-count goals. 


Some of the skills NaNoWriMo builds:

• Fluency: Writing so much in so little time boosts students’ proficiency in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and will help them approach future writing assignments with ease and confidence.
• Confidence: When creating so much text in such a short period of time, students realize just how much they can accomplish when they put their minds to it. NaNoWriMo leaves young writers asking themselves, “What’s next?”
• Creativity: Creating characters, situations, dialogue, and even whole planets from scratch helps kids think, but it also teaches them how to apply their fanciful ideas to a full project.
• Time Management: Our curriculum teaches students how to tackle a huge project by breaking it down into manageable bites!

JoyTunes Recorder Master App

This FREE app is for iPad!  Download now.


Recorder Master is a fascinatingly unique app – immersing your child in a wild-west cartoon, video game world filled with dangerous birds that must be defeated by playing…the recorder!  Your child can use a real recorder to play the game, or play it by touch by tapping and holding the notes on the screen.

Combining true game mechanics with direct teaching of notes, fingering positions, note lengths, melodies, playing by ear, breath control, and more – Recorder Master carefully moves from level to level – each filled with games designed to teach and encourage the practicing of recorder skills.


Each level contains a mix of games designed to teach vital skills every budding musician needs.    In the airplane game your child needs to play the specified note(s) to move the airplane up and down to collect the music notes.  In the bird melody game your child needs to ‘pop’ the birdies (of varying sizes to represent different note lengths) to play an accompaniment to a recorded song – or as the game progresses, a full melody.  The playing by ear game plays a simple melody that your child must repeat, matching the notes and the length of each as the character jumps from platform to platform in response to your child’s performance.
These games are arranged in varying orders and in different quantities (some games are played more than once) in each level and each of them records a score out of 3 music notes based upon your child’s accuracy.  The main map shows the total number of music notes accumulated at each finished level.  At the end of each level a big boss bird must be defeated with the recorder!

Map 1 teaches notes B, A, and G, teaching them each individually before adding them together for a simple melody (Mary Had a Little Lamb) at the end of the first map.  Completing the first seven levels of map 1 unlocks map 2 (WiFi needed to download).  Map 2 teaches the notes C and D and includes exciting new songs such as Jingle Bells, Ode to Joy (Beethoven’s 9th Symphony) and more.

MathLanding

Mathlanding is a resource and tools for elementary math specialists and teachers.   When you arrive on the home page it asks you a question:  "Can we help you find something?"   If you aren't sure, you can select a math topic and even narrow your search by grade.   

We searched fractions, geometry, math history, and probabilities just to see what kind of things it would bring up.   

I could see this being used as supplemental practice, review practice or even summer bridge activities.  

 No matter how you decide to use it, MathLanding is a great resource for your elementary math lessons.

KenKen Puzzles

KenKen puzzles are quite the puzzle to some: They can’t believe that KENKEN—something so delightfully addictive, so completely fun—has an educational basis.    It’s not a crossword. It’s not some extreme version of tic-tac-toe. So what is KENKEN and where did it come from? Simply put, it’s a grid-based numerical puzzle that uses the basic math operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—while also challenging your logic and problem-solving skills. By altering the size of a KENKEN grid, from 3 x 3 up to 9 x 9, and employing different combinations of the math operations, five different difficulty levels can be generated, and a seemingly endless number of puzzles. (And many players seem determined to try them all!) In a way, KENKEN is like a game of pool or even chess: The more you think ahead to your next move and consider all the possible outcomes, the better you’ll get—and the smarter you’ll become! 

KenKen recently announced their Classroom program which supplies teachers with KenKen puzzles on a regular basis. FREE! Sign up here.   Please be aware this is a limited time offer, subject to change or expire without notice!  Teacher Sign Up Here!  

Doodle 4 Google Mississippi Exhibit

Doodle 4 Google Mississippi Exhibition

Trustmark Grand Hall

MS Museum of Art

Now through August 12, 2012

FREE to the public!

For the last five years, Google has invited K-12 students to create their own doodles and submit them as part of the Doodle 4 Google contest. This year over 114,000 students doodled on the theme “If I could travel in time, id visit….” This Doodle 4 Google 2012 exhibition showcases the best doodles from Mississippi and celebrates the creativity and artistic talents of our state’s youth. Free to the public.

Back in science with Albert Einstein:  Jonathan N, Ocean Springs, MS, Age 9