K12 Reader is more like a spelling and reading curriculum for grades 1-5. There are tons of worksheets for spelling and reading comprehension in here like the Dolch words worksheets and activities, handwriting practice worksheets etc. categorized by grade level. There are also some grammar worksheets. You can also find instructions on a number of topics such as phoneme awareness, reading fluency etc. The site also offers many games and activities to enhance the reading and spelling skills of children. If you like to use curriculums in your home education and are looking for a reading and spelling one, then before spending a good chunk of money you can give this site a try.
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Friday, March 2, 2012
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Blogs For Kids
“When thinking about “BLOGGING” , the untrained eye (in regards to blogging) of an educator usually will think of “Technology Integration”. When digging a little deeper he/she might recognize that blogging is more about WRITING than technology. But let’s roll blogging back even a little further and we will discover that blogging starts with READING!”
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano
To get your kids in the habit of blogging, it is important for them to first subscribe to a number of quality blogs and read them on a daily basis. Below I have compiled a list of blogs and websites whose content may appeal to young readers. Encourage them to set up their own RSS readers and start following blogs and websites before they start writing their own blogs. Many of the sites are incredible as resources for education as well.
(Sometimes some of the content available on these sites may not be appropriate for Muslim children, like the news stories about actors and singers etc. , so make sure that adult supervision is available and children have a sense of what content type may not be suitable etc.)
NEWS SITES FOR KIDS
CBBC Newsround
BBC news site for kids and teens.
GOGO News
Big news for little people.
CNN Student News
Many discussions and quizes based on news. Can be doubled as a teaching resource.
Scholastic News
Complete in-depth reports and activities on the latest news for kids.
Time for Kids
Well it is just that! TIMES for kids.
News Bites from National Geographic
Some cool bits of news with National Geographic’s signature photography.
Youngzine
News + more for the young.
MAGAZINES FOR KIDS
National Geographic Young Explorers
A must must for young kids.
Bear Essential
Many past issues are available as well to read.
Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears
All about poles.
Children’s Web Magazine
A safe magazine for ages 8+
ANIMAL SITES
WWF News
Conservation news and stories.
Zoo Borns
The newest and cutest exotic baby animals from zoos and aquariums from around the world.
MUSEUM AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC SITES
BLOGS BY OTHER KIDS
Miriam’s Magical Moments
Blog by a fourth grader. High content quality and nice blogging etiquettes.
Ibne Muhammad’s Blog
My son’s blog which serves as an eportfolio at the moment but we plan to make it more than that in future Insha Allaah.
Binte Muhammad’s Blog
My daughter’s blog which serves as an eportfolio at the moment but we plan to make it more than that in future insha Allaah.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Practice skimming
Skimming or skim reading is an essential skill when processing information for researches etc. BBC skillwise has a nice set of activity, quiz and worksheet to practice this vital reading skill.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Wednesday Weekly Website–A Dog’s Life
Review: A Dog’s Life is a superb interactive from Scholastic. It is based on a book of the same name by Ann M. Martin. This book is an autobiography of a stray dog named Squirrel. This site is choked full of stuff to explore. Younger kids can make the dog on the screen move, make him sleep, give him a ball to play, make him eat or drink or hear the author read excerpts from the book. Older children can read an interactive story about Bone, Squirrel’s brother, in Bone travels on who also appeared in the original book. Children can make choices for Bone which will influence the story. In Create a Tale they can think up a new adventure for squirrel or any other character in the book and write a story and illustrate it. Children can also learn about how the book was created and see many drafts from the author. They can read/listen about how the author started writing, learn the differences between human and doggy senses, find fun facts about dog paws, learn more about breeds of dogs, create their own hybrid breeds and a lot more. Even if you or your child haven’t read the book, you can still benefit from this website. There is no music which is a definite plus.
Suitable for ages: 3-12
Monday, June 13, 2011
Worksheet Fun for June
Discovery Education has a wealth of worksheets at worksheets to go, made by teachers and categorized by subject and grade level. Check it out!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Wednesday Weekly website–Story Time For Me
Review: Story Time For Me is a wonderful, new resource of rich, entertaining and uplifting stories for children to read, and it is free! Story Time For Me is the creation of Andrew Gitt who assembled a team of children’s literary experts and multi-media specialists, and the result is an array of wonderful books for children as young as toddlers. You can choose from 3 different series characters: Fern, Ben or Flame. The actual stories are rich with different animations. There are also many ways that you can listen to the stories. You can choose to have each word or phrase highlighted as it is read, pages flipped, sound on or off just by using the menu below each story. A very good resource but like many other good resources it has music. The good part is that the music is not there throughout the stories but rather on some pages, where turning the volume low turns out the music while still letting you listen to the narration. But if this doesn’t solve the problem, you can still mute the story and read it aloud yourself or let your child read those parts. All the stories have a moral lesson and according to the creator of the website:
Almost all of the books have a lesson that can be learned. It’s one thing for kids to learn to read, but quite another to teach them lessons in life and how to become responsible, caring adults. Andrew Gitt
Suitable for ages: 1-8
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday Weekly Website–Story Scramble
Review: Story Scramble is another good site from PBS. In this easy and straight forward game, young kids are asked to put the story cards in right order. A exercise for beginner readers and comprehension. If the child is too young to read, he/she can still play the game as each card can be read to the player by hitting the speaker button. There is some music (can that noise be called music?) at the beginning of the game though.
Suitable for ages: 3-5
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Wednesday Weekly Website–Pete’s PowerPoint Station
Review: Find hundreds of PowerPoint resources and interactive activities for different age levels and varying subjects at Pete’s PowerPoint Station. Subject range varies from language arts, business and occupation, geography to chemistry and physics. You will also find training tutorials on a variety of topics as well as free clip art from Phillip Martin Cliparts. Take your time browsing through this site and you are sure to find some true gems. As there are practically hundreds of resources, I do not know whether there is music in everyone or not and if the contents are suitable for kids so make sure to check the resource before showing it to your kids.
Suitable for ages: 3-18
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Worksheet Fun for March
Thousands of good quality worksheets can be found at Super Teacher Worksheets. Here you can find worksheets on math, science, language arts, reading and comprehension, social studies, worksheets on different themes and teaching aids like graphic organizers etc. for grade levels from 1 to 6. A real treasure trove!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Wednesday Weekly Website–Dead Bird Mystery
Review: Strange Dead Bird Mystery is a wonderful activity by University of Montana. According to the site “The online activity uses a mystery format and narrative structure to attract all students into solving science questions, even those who are not typically engaged by science. The science mystery is in the format of a second-person fictional narrative in a realistic setting. The reader is a character in the story, and makes decisions that influence the outcome of the story. The mystery gets students to think logically, to evaluate facts critically, and to pose and prove/disprove hypotheses -- without realizing they're doing it!” If you have more than one learner, group them together as a team to solve the mystery or you can let them compete against each other. This activity provides information about American wetland but you can still use it if you are living in another part of the world. If your learner likes the activity you can perhaps adopt it for your local habitat by trying to solve the mystery of “fallen leaf” or “buried rocks” or any “spotted birds” you may find on a walk. This activity is available in both flash and HTML versions and has no music.
Suitable for ages: 7-13
Monday, January 17, 2011
Few Things To Do With Toys (part 1)
Toys are an integral part of a child’s life and there are tons of ways one can use them in learning. Here are a few ideas to incorporate learning in the world of toys. (There are ideas for different age groups, and if you have kids between 3 and 13 you may find something in here.)
Part 1 - Literacy with Toys
1. Adjective Detective
Create personalities for toys. If it is a car, think if it is a lazy car or a speedy car. Think of the places you would go with this car. Talking about far away places may appeal to young imaginations but take care not to indulge in fantasies like a flying car or a talking magic car. Give your toys some character, a name and make a fact file about that character. Think of adjectives to describe its personalities, use those adjectives to make silly poems or try them in Arabic.
2. Write Stories
Write stories about toys. Since we don’t have stuffed teddies and animals as toys, it’s a bit more difficult to weave a story around them but we try! For example if my child chooses a car and wants to write a story about it, we think of things such as how it loves serving its master, how hurt it feels when its not taken proper care of, how it would love to be a real car and the places it would go. What it sees while resting on its shelf in the child’s room, what it thought about the latest turn of events like a fight between the brothers. The opportunities are endless. It would be infinitely better if you participate and write a story of your own as well.
3. Phonics Scavenger Hunts
Do toy scavenger hunts with your child. For example he/she has to find a toy beginning with each letter of alphabet/ starting with certain sounds etc. If you do not have that many toys, you can use pictures of toys from magazines etc. (I like to keep those grocery store promotional papers for this purpose). Equip your child with a digital camera to make hunt more interesting.
4. Make Books
Make books with the pictures of toys. Older children can make caption books where they write a caption to each picture. They can also arrange toys in a scenario and then write simple sentences to explain the scene. They can also have a go at making chapter books if they wish. You can make an alphabet book or a number book for younger kids. For alphabet book you can use the pictures from the scavenger hunt and use simple tools like power point to put together your book. Or you can use sites like bookr to find images from flickr and put in your online book. Or make a non digital version where your child can paint/draw his toy or cut the pictures of toys from magazines. For number books you can take a picture of that many toys.
5. Describe and Draw
Collect pictures of toys from magazines etc. and team with your child. You both get a card and have to describe it so that the other person can draw it. Compare the originals with the drawn versions. (Please refrain from drawing the pictures of animated objects.) It is a great exercise for describing things verbally and practicing second languages like Arabic etc.
6. Persuasive Writing
6. Practice persuasive writing by choosing a toy and designing packaging or advertisement flyer for it. Brainstorm what to include in your packaging/ flyer, how to make it attractive without telling lies and even exaggerating. A good opportunity to educate your child about honesty in trade. You can even discuss the stories of salaf who practiced extra ordinary honesty in their trades. Designing the flyer in programs like publisher, paint, power point or even photoshop can let your child learn a lot of technical stuff.
7. Make your own
Make your own toys. Reading instructions and following them is a vital skill to learn, so learn them by making fun toys to play with. Use sites like The toy maker or AHC. Try writing something about your toy, like why you like it, how it works etc.
8. Figurative Language
Have fun with personification. Personification consists of giving inanimate objects human traits. Choose a toy and write a sentence giving this toy a human trait. To make it more fun, illustrate your sentence using programs like tux paint or photo shop.
9. Stop Motion Animation
Older children can write a story about toys, and make stop motion animations for those stories. They can even make animations about Islamic etiquettes, morals etc. to educate a younger sibling.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Wednesday Weekly Website–Maps Tools For Adventure
Review: Maps tools For Adventure is a joint venture by National Geographic and The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. This is actually a travelling exhibit but apart from the exhibit the site alone is the best I have come across on the topic of maps. Teaching about key math concepts can feel dry but not with Maps Tools Of Adventure where maps are presented as “tools of adventure” . There are six excellent games to play and a wealth of ideas in the educators’ section. As the kids work their through games they are introduced to topics such as map keys and legends, Layers of information on a map, GIS (Global Information System), different kinds of maps etc at the same time learning about how maps are used in everyday life, how to follow directions, reading skills, endangered animals and Egyptian Pyramids etc. In the official unit study on mapping skills you will find tips on introducing mapping skills to younger children and working your way through to more complex skills. For bigger kids try engaging lessons and activities like Spice World, Geography of Pizza, Mapping the human journey etc. Check out the related links for additional goodies. Overall a great resource which in itself can be enough when teaching maps and geography.
Suitable for ages: 5-15
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Two Weeks Worth Of Poetry Lessons
… and 18 different styles to explore by EdGalaxy.
(readers viewing this post in readers may not be able to see the embedded slideshow below)
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Wednesday Weekly Website – Roy The Zebra
Review: Roy the Zebra is an excellent interactive site for emerging readers. The site comprises mainly of a guided story section and interactive reading games section. The guided stories have before reading and after reading discussion sheets and related literacy worksheets. The interactive games section includes games on word level and sentence level to enhance skills such as phonics, rhyming words, alphabetical ordering, punctuation and comprehension etc. There is also a paid option in which you can install the reading software along with hundred of printable resources like worksheets, flashcards, wall displays etc. I haven’t tried their paid option as I don’t think my kids need that but you can try it for free for 5 days. The free options are worth a look and since the children this age need a lot of variation and variety in their reading, keeping this site in your literacy toolbox will help, insha Allaah. There is no music on the site which is a plus.
Suitable for ages: 7-9 (according to the website but my kids were able to enjoy it since 4 years of age and got bored long before 9 years of age. So better give it a try with little ones as well.)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday Weekly Website - Starfall
Review: Starfall is a free learn to read with phonics website. It provides interactive activities, videos, interactive books (fiction and non fiction) and games which help the young learners in learning to read. Easy to navigate and simple interface makes it possible for the young ones to use this website on their own. There are many free to print resources also available on the site to reinforce learning. Starfall takes the learner on their journey to learn reading through four categories, Alphabets, Learn to read, It’s fun to read, I’m reading. There is some music at the start of the activities so make sure to turn off the speakers at the beginning of activities.
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