TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Oct 7, 2012
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
We Read - WeRead.org
Grades
K to 3
We Read is a website designed to help adults teach and encourage children to read. Information is presented in a clear and easy to read manner. Choose a topic such ...more
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We Read is a website designed to help adults teach and encourage children to read. Information is presented in a clear and easy to read manner. Choose a topic such as planning reading sessions. View specific plans for sessions with non-readers and early readers for specific times for sessions and appropriate activities. Other interesting topics include the Parents' Corner, Reading Skills, and information on Reading Logs. Although very simple, this site is an excellent resource for anyone beginning to work with early readers. The site includes links to helpful resources from many other places on the web.
tag(s): literacy (123), parents (56), preK (286), reading comprehension (150)
In the Classroom
Share information from this site with classroom volunteers and parents or use information to add to literature you distribute at Meet the Teacher/Back to School night or conferences. The Planning Reading Sessions information may be especially useful to share with parents as a framework for reading at home. Include a link to this site on your class website or blog as a resource for parents to use when reading at home with their child.Drama in the ESL Classroom - Jessica Davis
Grades
2 to 12Find a wealth of resources for using drama in the ENL/ELL classroom. The same activities can also be useful for other subjects. The improvisation resources are especially exciting,...more
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Find a wealth of resources for using drama in the ENL/ELL classroom. The same activities can also be useful for other subjects. The improvisation resources are especially exciting, offering definitions, examples of activities, links, and visual examples of how you can use improvisational techniques. In addition, information and activities on using plays, process drama, and reader's theater for language teaching abound. Use play writing for another aspect of language teaching. There is a complete curriculum for offering an independent class in drama for ENL/ELL students. Although this site may appear plain vanilla, there are sprinkles throughout, making this tool very valuable and informative.
tag(s): acting (20), creative writing (125), plays (32)
In the Classroom
Use this site as the starting point for group projects like having the students write and produce their own play(s). This is a great find for gifted students as well as students studying any modern language as the play writing and acting techniques can easily be adapted. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos of the plays they write and produce then edit and save them using using CapCut, reviewed here. Share the videos on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here.The Mind is a Metaphor - Brad Pasanek
Grades
7 to 12The Mind is a Metaphor is something like a dictionary for finding metaphors. There are over ten thousand of them. Though many are mental metaphors, there are some that don't ...more
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The Mind is a Metaphor is something like a dictionary for finding metaphors. There are over ten thousand of them. Though many are mental metaphors, there are some that don't relate to the mind. This site originally started with an "expanded eighteenth century" list, but now has metaphors from as late as the 1990's. Search for a metaphor by literary period, author, genre, gender, and several others. You may also enjoy the creator's blog with his interpretations of his favorite metaphors at Blog for The Mind is a Metaphor.
tag(s): literary devices (13)
In the Classroom
High school AP literature and history teachers or IB capstone classes will especially love this site. Share a metaphor a day as students are entering the class or on your class web site. Allow a student to choose one as today's Metaphor Master! Discuss the meaning together or use it as a quick writing prompt. Use the time period to discuss the historical context of the metaphor. Use these in your own presentations or require students to create a presentation explaining the metaphors you assign. Younger students just beginning to study metaphors can benefit from trying to interpret the metaphors as a group and presenting them to the class. Challenge students to try to create their own metaphors. Develop a class Metaphor Wiki for students to share metaphors. Not familiar with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.PDFmyURL - OpenTracker.net
Grades
K to 12Turn any web page into a PDF document instantly with this incredibly easy tool! Simply type or copy and paste the url into the box and click the "P" button. ...more
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Turn any web page into a PDF document instantly with this incredibly easy tool! Simply type or copy and paste the url into the box and click the "P" button. Instantly the page converts to a PDF document and downloads to your computer for immediate use. Drag the site's bookmarklet onto your browser's toolbar for easy use at any time with any page.
In the Classroom
Use this site to print any web page without all of the headings and other extras that generally appear. Make print outs for students to practice highlighting and looking for main ideas in informational texts (especially if you do not have an interactive whiteboard to do this). Upload PDF's to your website for student use of single pages of websites instead of having students go through unneeded pages. Be sure to show students that you must make a note of the DATE when you made the pdf, since you should always include the "date accessed" in a project bibliography entry for a web site. Talk about "fair use" in making web page copies for temporary use as part of research or class activities vs copying web pages to hang them up as locker decorations! This may be a good site to share with parents via your website. (Help them save paper and print only what they need, not an entire website.)
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.