Extra Credit: Celebrate National Poetry Month!

This excerpt from a Robert Frost poem, introduced to us by Kid President, has become a favorite in our classroom. April is National Poetry Month ~ it's a great time to discover this wonderful form of writing!

For extra credit this month, create some poems of your own and publish them for your classmates to read, create an Animoto based on a favorite poem, perform a poem for the class... basically, find a way to share poetry with us!

Super Spellers

I have several students who are incredible spellers so keeping them challenged is always, well, a challenge. Here are some websites that provide some spelling fun:

http://www.spellingbeethegame.com/

http://www.bigiqkids.com/SpellingGame/SpellingGameContest.html

And for vocabulary on the same website: 

http://www.bigiqkids.com/VocabularyGame/VocabularyGameContest.html

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/bee/

http://word-games.pogo.com/games/tumble-bees

Challenging words to practice:

http://www.myspellit.com/need2know.html

Word Study

When you were in elementary school, no doubt you were given a list of spelling words on Monday, a week's worth of homework assignments to practice the words, followed by a test on Friday. This method of learning to spell may work for some students but studies have shown that a more effective way to teach students to spell is Word Study. In this kind of program, students are not encouraged to simply memorize the words but rather, the emphasis is placed on understanding the patterns found in words and in understanding the structures of the language. Word Study includes work in phonics and vocabulary and leads to greater success in reading. Check out this article from LD Online for more about Word Study.

We will spend two weeks on each of our Word Study lists, starting with a basic list of words from our language program, Imagine It! The lists are based on sounds and spelling patterns so that the children may investigate the words and figure out the patterns on their own - much more powerful than if I were to tell them how the words are similar or should be grouped. These basic lists will work well for many of the students but other children may need more of a challenge or a shortened/simplified list. This differentiation helps me ensure that all students are doing work appropriate for their own individual level.

During the first week of each study, we will work with the words together in class. We'll go over the words together and then work with them in many ways, discovering the common spellings associated with certain sounds as we go. The children really are becoming word detectives at this point! We will then try to find other words that fit into the same patterns.

During the second week, the children will continue to investigate and work with the words in class and will practice them at home as well. They will also spend time working with the 5 high frequency words that go along with the list. These words don't fit the patterns we are working on but they are words that second graders will use a lot and should know how to spell.

Spelling & Vocabulary City is a website the children can use to practice their words during homework week or at any time. http://www.spellingcity.com/

Fun With Words

It's our last week of spelling homework so I thought I'd share a favorite website that I was recently reminded of. :)

From the Wordle website: "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

This word cloud was created using the words we collected as we read The Name of This Book is Secret. After you create your own Wordle, you may want to save it. You can print it out right away or save it to their public gallery. Another option is to do a screen capture so that you can save the Wordle as a picture file. There's no way to search for your Wordle so be sure to copy the web address before you move on to something else if you want to be able to find it again.

A fun thing to do with Wordle is to create a word cloud without a title and have a friend try to guess what it is about. Here's an example...

Can you guess what the title is?

(hint: this is something we do in class almost every week)

Wordle is a free website so I have a few cautions about it.

• Occasionally, the site seems to freeze up or otherwise not work. It may be helpful to type your words into a text file (in Word or a similar word processor) and then copy/paste them into Wordle. That way, you won't lose all of the text if you have problems with the website.
• Text on Wordle cannot be removed or censored. It is possible to come across word clouds that have inappropriate words in them - *Parents: see the FAQ section for filtering what your child has access to if you are concerned about this.* I have visited the site many times and haven't seen anything inappropriate yet.
• If you post to the public gallery, be sure that you haven't included anything you don't want shared with the whole world. *Kids - this includes using your whole name and anything that gives information about where you live! Always be safe when you are working online.

If you create a Wordle, please share it with us! It's fun to see what others create and gives us great ideas.

Secret Codes

For this week's spelling practice, I've added a new box to the Tic-Tac-Toe board that allows the children to write their words in secret code. I have provided a couple of coded alphabets but they are welcome to create their own or use others that they find.

For more fun with cryptology, check out these websites:

 

Cryptokids from the National Security Agency

Secret Messages for Kids ONLY from thunk.com

 

Spy Kids on The Youth Online Club

Cypher Wheel from Top Spy Secrets