Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Best Educational Games for Back to School



Many schools and teachers post a list of recommended websites for learning games for their students.  Here's a curated list of educational and engaging learning games for schools to post on their website and send out to teachers.  Obviously, it can be adjusted by the teacher's or school's focus and their types of students.

Spelling Games

Phonics Games

Syllables and Segmenting Games

Analogies

Writing Lessons and Activities

Typing/Keyboarding Games

Vocabulary Games
http://www.spellingcity.com/spelling-games-vocabulary-games.html
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary_games.html
http://www.spellingcity.com/Games/matchit.html
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/english-language-games/
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/context-and-definitions/

Brain Training Games
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/miscellaneous_games.html

Bookmarking Sites
Symbaloo's Visual Bookmarking has some great webmixes!
http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/wordgames2

Monday, February 20, 2012

Flashcards

At first glance, flash cards are very retro. I mean, like who still needs to memorize anything?  And why use paper for it.  But, in fact, flashcards are currently used by most students since there's still, and probably always will be, loads of memorization as part of education.  One big issue, is learning math facts.  These need to be done by heard and math fact flash cards are a perennial.


There are also online Flashcards, for spelling, vocabulary, and more,that allow users to study words in context, learn definitions, parts of speech and more. Use this VocabularySpellingCity activity as your own personal flashcard maker. Creating flashcards for kids using their word lists gives them a fun, interactive way to study for tests.
Online Flashcards Instructions: Click on each flashcard or tap the spacebar to view the reverse side of the card. To customize your flashcards, click on the Customize link at the bottom of the card. Choose which information (word, definition, sentence, part of speech, synonyms, or antonyms) you wish to display on the front side of the flashcards, and which information you wish to display on the flip side. Flashcards can be shown in alphabetical order, the order in which you entered the words, or in random order. 
Printable Flashcard Instructions: The flashcards can be printed in a variety of sizes ranging from Jumbo flash cards (one to a page) to mini (fourteen flashcards per page).  

Elementary Writing: The Writers Workshop

It seems like Writer's Workshop and Six Traits Writing are two popular approaches to learning to write in schools.  But how is a school ...