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Daily Activities for Language Arts:
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/subject_area.htm#lang
Word a Day:
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.html
Students visit (or subscribe to ) Word a Day. They keep track of the words they learn in a database. Write sentences or short paragraphs with words from a 10 day span.
Daily Buzzword:
http://www.wordcentral.com/cgi-bin/bwwod.pl
Student?s visit or subscribe to Daily Buzzword. They can hear the word, see it used in a sentence and take a short quiz to demonstrate understanding of the meaning. Write sentences or short paragraphs using words from a 10 day period. Keep track of the words they?ve learned in a database or excel list with filters.
Daily Almanac:
http://www.infoplease.com/cgi-bin/word
Have your students play a daily word game on the Infoplease Web site. They click on what does it mean? to find the day's word. Students can listen to the word's pronunciation if the computer has audio. Among the recent words on this site were sophism, pinquid, and prandial. Each entry provides a statement employing the word in context and three possible definitions. Students click on the definition they believe to be the correct one and quickly learn whether they are right or wrong.
Idiom of the Day:
http://www.englishonline.net/idiom.html
This daily posting has all the makings for a quick, fun language activity at any grade level. Teachers might use the daily idiom as a discussion to settle students after lunch. Or students might create Idiom Journals; each day they might write their own take on the Idiom of the Day.
Daily Word Puzzle:
http://64.15.203.20/game/
Five types of word games (Definition Demolition, Flip Flop, Transform Brainstorm, Highbrow Lowbrow, and Match Maker) alternate to fill this space on a daily basis. The games are great tools for exercising the brain and for developing vocabulary at the middle- and high-school levels.
Daily Oral Language Assignments
Daily Oral Language with the book theme: We Remember the Holocaust
Daily Oral Language gorilla theme / Buffalo, NY zoo:
http://www.projectview.org/BuffaloZoo/DailyOralLangandVocabActivities.htm
Daily Oral Language Wolf theme:
http://www.digisys.net/users/marshaz/wolves/DOL.pdf
New York Times Crossword Puzzle:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/xwords/index.html
Twice a month you can ?play? a new crossword puzzle on the New York Times Learning network. Browers must support Java in order to ?play? it online, but it can also be printed. A great addition to this feature is the links provided to encourage students to learn more about the crossword puzzle?s featured topic!
Test Prep Question of the Day:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/satofday/index.html
This service is provided by the New York Times and Kaplan, the test prep experts. Students can log on to see a question each day, answer it then see a detailed explanation of the answer. They can also access recent archives.
CURRENT EVENTS
Daily News Quiz:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/quiz/index.html
The New York Times provides weekly quiz which covers material from the previous weeks? postings on the New York Times on the Web.
Daily Lesson Plan at the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/index.html
Teachers can easily incorporate current events topics into their curriculum with the aid of the New York Times Daily Lesson Plan. You?ll also find access to the lesson plan archives.
Simple ongoing Current Events Activity:
Students take 10-15 minutes each morning to look at local/national/world news (CNN, USATODAY etc.). They choose a news item of interest to them and prepare a short oral report for the class - not all students report each day - perhaps 8-10 - it is up to a 1 minute oral report. The student then follows that news item over the next week to keep the class up to date. The student can also keep an electronic version of their report for posting or sharing with other classmates. Language Arts teachers will quite often take the news item as a writing focus in the class - social studies teachers can have students use the news items for further research, linking to local studies re history, geography etc.
The above activity can be modified very easily according to teacher/student needs.
Ask a Reporter:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/ask_reporters/index.html
Students can write reporter Andy Newman, of the New York Times and their letter and answer will appear online. Questions can be related to a news article but don?t have to be of that nature.
Literature and Language Arts Websites at EDsiteMent, a Marco Polo partner.
http://edsitement.neh.gov/tab_websites.asp
42 Explore by Annette Lamb:
http://www.42explore.com/42exploreenglish.htm
English Language arts topics include reading, writing and literature.
Literature Learning Ladders
http://eduscapes.com/ladders/index.html
Encouraging active reading through book / technology connections.
Literature/Reading
The Writer?s Almanac: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
The Writer's Almanac, from Minnesota Public Radio, is a daily program of poetry and history hosted by Garrison Keillor. Parts of each show's script is available on-line. An archive provides scripts from the past year. This would be a nice resource for a middle or high school literature teacher to use as a tool for familiarizing students with great American authors. A timeline could be created to highlight some of the events.
Literary Calendar: http://english.yasuda-u.ac.jp/lc
Click on a date on the current month's calendar and up pops all kinds of literary information related to the day. An archive allows you to search for information about a date outside the current month. This site's information is also available in daily doses to anyone who subscribes to their email list.
Book Adventure: http://bookadventure.org/
Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 6,000 recommended titles, take multiple choice quizzes on the books they've read offline, and earn points and prizes for their literary successes. Book Adventure was created by the Sylvan Learning Foundation and is sponsored by Sylvan Learning, Inc.
Storyline Online:
http://www.bookpals.net/storyline/index.html
The Screen Actors Guild Foundation is proud to bring you Storyline Online, an on-line streaming video program featuring SAG members reading childrens books aloud. Hand-picked by BookPALS National Program Director Ellen Nathan, a former teacher and librarian, each of the books on this site offer an accompanying lesson plan and activity guide.
Elementary students will love having these stories read to them. Teachers will want to download the lesson plans provided for each book. Several also include the text that can be used to act out the book.
Middle school students can use this site to review picture books when working on a unit to create their own children?s book. Use as motivation for their own stories, discuss variety of language and engaging graphics. This site is also a great example of what students could do for younger children in their district. Read stories aloud and post them on a school intranet.
ROYALTY FREE LITERATURE
Aesop's Fables: http://www.AesopFables.com/
American Folklore: http://www.americanfolklore.net/
This folklore site contains retellings of American folktales, Native American myths and legends, tall tales, weather folklore and ghost stories from each and every one of the 50 United States. You can read about all sorts of famous characters like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Daniel Boone, and many more.
American Verse Project: http://www.hti.umich.edu/a/amverse/
The project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920. The full text of each volume of poetry is being converted into digital form and coded in Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (SGML) using the TEI Guidelines, with various forms of access provided through the WWW.
Books Available on the Web (FREE)
Digital Book Index: http://digitalbookindex.com/about.htm
Elementary Literature free online
Middle School / High School Literature Free on the Web
College Literature Free on the Web
Literature and Language Arts Websites at EDsiteMent, a Marco Polo partner.
http://edsitement.neh.gov/tab_websites.asp
Literature Learning Ladders:
http://eduscapes.com/ladders/ladders.html
The Literature ? Technology Connection:
http://eduscapes.com/ladders/overview.html
Harness the power of technology to facilitate a more thorough understanding of the themes in a book.
See examples of:
A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park :
http://eduscapes.com/newbery/02a.htm
The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo:
http://eduscapes.com/newbery/04a.htm
Web-based thematic unit on Bud, not Buddy, by Paul Curtis.
http://eduscapes.com/reading/bud |
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