Category: Language arts

A Short Guide to Interesting Teens in Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is internationally regarded as one of the greatest playwrights and poets in history, and his works have had a profound impact on our cultural heritage. Learning Shakespeare is a valuable and rewarding experience that can enrich our understanding of literature, language, and culture.

Here’s a quick overview of how to get teens interested in Shakespeare:

A Short Guide to Getting Teens Interested in Shakespeare

If you’re a high school teacher, you can probably hear the groans now as they wave through the classroom. You’ve reached the inevitable Shakespeare unit of an English course, and some students just are not clicking with it.

But they call him the “immortal bard” for a reason. The themes, character dynamics and conflicts in Shakespearean plays echo into the modern day. Some of his principal preoccupations – the enduring nature of love, the pitfalls of tyranny, etc. – are as relevant in 2023 as they were in 1600. And students have a lot to learn from keen insights, critical gaze and deep understanding of human nature present in Shakespearean literature.

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#32: How to Use Art to Teach Grammar

Here’s a great lesson that uses every child’s innate love of color to learn grammar. All you need is MS Word or Google Docs), a quick introduction to the toolbars and tools, and about 25 minutes to complete. If you’re the tech lab teacher, this gives you a chance to reinforce the grammar lesson the classroom is teaching and teach tech skills students need (click to enlarge):

[caption id="attachment_1026" align="aligncenter" width="450"]COLOR1 From Structured Learning’s Tech Lab Toolkit Volume I[/caption]

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How One Teacher Found Innovative Solutions to ELL Issues

I met Dr. Bill Morgan through a shared interest in keyboarding for youngers (see this article on A Conversation About Keyboarding and this article on Preparing Young Students for Home Row Keyboarding: An Unplugged Approach). In each other, we found kindred spirits, both passionate about better ways to teach today’s learners.

When Bill offered an article on a new class he started that helps English Language Learners, I was excited. It’s an important issue with not enough solutions. His approach is innovative, original, easy to implement (with some effort), and effective. Read on and see if this would work in your district. He’s included contact information so you can reach him with questions:

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Computer Literacy for English Language Learners

“Typing by the Numbers”

Dr. Bill Morgan, Ph.D.

Over the decades I have added both Educational Technology and TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) endorsements to my elementary teaching certificate. My graduate studies focused on integrating technology across the curriculum.

Along the way I began volunteering with various organizations, working with immigrants from other countries. One evening a man from another culture asked me how to spell a specific word. As I spelled the word out loud we both realized that the sound I was using to name a vowel was not the same sound that he was familiar with. It must have been Spanish, where letter A “always says ah,” letter E “always says ay,” etc. When I used the letter A in the spelling of a word, he heard the letter E. When I used the letter E he heard the letter I. It was nearly impossible for him to take dictation from me.

He then asked me to write words for him to copy in his notebook. He laughed out loud and then said, “You write like a doctor!” I took that to mean that he could read my handwriting no better than that of a doctor who had given him handwritten notes to read.

From then on I brought my laptop computer to class. When an adult English learner asked me to spell a word I would type the word then enlarge the font that could be read by all in the room. I didn’t need a projector nor a large screen TV, I only needed a laptop sized monitor.

Thinking of how I might integrate technology with instruction, I gathered a group of bilingual community members and started, “Computer Literacy for English Language Learners, NFP.” Find us on Facebook!

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What’s a Digipuzzle?

digital puzzlesNetherlands-based Digipuzzle is an online educational resource that offers hundreds of G-rated learning games for younger audiences, many in both Spanish and English.  Topics include math, animals, typing, geography, spelling, letter recognition, holidays, seasons, dinosaurs, USA, other games, and more.  Many of these are divided into subcategories — for example: Math includes games and counting, fractions, addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Digipuzzle even offers holiday games.  The site is easy to navigate, fun to use, and completely free. It is the labor of love from Marcel van de Wouw. It includes not only lots of themed puzzles, but Sudoku, line puzzles, search puzzles, dot-to-dot, tangrams, mosaics, and more.

You can use Digipuzzle on the web or as a mobile app.

Pros

Each game includes a sidebar with easy-to-understand icons that answer questions, access settings, and click you through available games.

Each game can be played at the level a student is comfortable — easy, normal, or hard — and can include audio or silent.

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education apps

Mindsnacks–Learning in Bite-sized Pieces

Mindsnacks is a series of education apps on topics like geography, vocabulary, languages, and SAT. With colorful graphics and cute characters, it’s a cross between flashcards and multiple choice with lots of visual thrown in. Though these are game-based learning, there’s no plot as you might find simulated games. Think Number Munchers rather than Minecraft. Each app includes personalized learning, an enhanced review mode, and additional challenges to keep students motivated.

To start, download the app and log in. If you have several Mindsnacks apps, you can log into a central profile and track your progress on all of them. Here are three of my favorites:

mindsnacksU.S. Geography

Fee

Mindsnacks’ U.S. Geography includes eight games for beginner and intermediate students with over 40 hours of interactive content, more than 600 hand-drawn graphics, and 1,000-plus questions on borders, shapes, landmarks, history, state culture, flags, mottos, capitals, and major cities. Initially, only four of the eight games are available; users unlock others by successfully navigating a virtual road trip across the country. A tutorial is provided for each state so kids can review basic information prior to beginning play. To keep learning interactive, the app includes features such as a dart players use to mark the spot on the map where a certain U.S. landform or landmark exists. Post-quiz reports show how close users are to mastering each state’s information and what skills they developed during the game.

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Weekend Website #92: 43 Language Arts Websites for 3rd Grade

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.earth day

Here’s a long list of Language Arts and Word Study websites for 3rd grade. I’m sure they’re fine for 4th and 5th, also. You decide, depending upon what your students are working on (check for updates).

  1. BBC Phonics
  2. BiteSize—Reading, Writing, Grammar
  3. Blends
  4. Common/Proper Noun Basketball
  5. Contraction Games
  6. Contraction Crossword
  7. Contraction Practice
  8. Create a picture with words
  9. Feast of Homonyms
  10. Flamingo Suffixes
  11. Funny Poetry
  12. Glossary of Poetry Terms
  13. Grammar Gorillas
  14. Grammaropolis
  15. Instant Poetry—fill in the blanks
  16. Jelly Fish
  17. Katie’s Clubhouse
  18. Opposites Train Game
  19. Parts of speech poetry
  20. The Patchworker
  21. Pick a Word
  22. Plural Nouns
  23. Poetry with a Porpoise
  24. Poetry Engine
  25. Prefix Catch
  26. Prefix Match
  27. Prefix Suffix Balloon Game
  28. Punctuation and Capitalization
  29. Punctuation Games
  30. Sam’s Lab
  31. Shaped Poems–fun
  32. Short Vowels
  33. Suffix Match
  34. Synonym or Antonym?
  35. Third Grade Poems
  36. Vocabulary Flood
  37. Vocabulary Pinball
  38. Web-based Mad Libs
  39. Word Balloons
  40. Word Family Sort
  41. Word Magnets
  42. Word Play
  43. Word Pond

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Weekend Website #51: 17 Story Sites for First and Second Grade

This is my list of websites students can use when we’re studying story-telling, fables and myths. This list includes sites

[caption id="attachment_4872" align="alignright" width="222"]create a story Create a story[/caption]

where students can read stories, have stories read to them and create their own. I pick 3-4, post them on our internet start page for a week or two, and then change the list. If you click that link, it takes you to kindergarten. You can select the red first grade tab or the blue second grade for more choices. If you don’t see any there, it’s because we’re not discussing stories right now.

See which work best for your students:

  1. Aesop’s Fables
  2. Aesop Fables—no ads
  3. Bad guy Patrol
  4. Childhood Stories
  5. Classic Fairy Tales
  6. Fairy Tales and Fables
  7. Make Your Story (more…)