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Thanksgiving Language Arts Activities!

November 16th, 2011

Hi!  It’s Wednesday, November 16, 2011 and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling.

Recommended Websites:
Thanksgiving Language Arts
(See below.)

Age Range: Varies (grades K-12, with parental supervision)

Read All About Wild Turkeys
National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF)

Read the information on this website that also has illustrations, photos, and sound clips to help you learn about wild turkeys. Discover:

  • What a wild turkey looks like
  • The difference between gobblers and hens
  • What a wild turkey sounds like
  • Wild turkey species and subspecies
  • Fast facts about turkeys and predators

Once you’ve read all about turkeys test your knowledge by printing out and solving these puzzles…

Then, try these Thanksgiving-themed Language Arts worksheets:

*Find the complete sentence.

*Underline the verbs and nouns in each sentence.

*Practice spelling the plural form of Thanksgiving words by printing out Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2

*Unscramble Thanksgiing-themed words. Prin out Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2

*Write an acrostic poem using the word “Turkey.”
To write an acrostic poem, use one word (such as “turkey”) as the subject of your poem. Write the word vertically on a sheet of paper. Use each letter of the word as the beginning letter for a word in each line of the poem. Each line of the poem must connect to the subject of the poem.

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Frogs, Fables, & Parables!

November 9th, 2011

Hi! It’s Wednesday, November 9, 2011, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
Frogland: Frog Fables and Parables

Age Range: 4 and up (with parental supervision)

The “Frogland” website was developed by a frog-lover to show that the Internet can indeed provide a wealth of useful information and still be fun. Dedicated to educators, the site inspires interest in herpetology, biology, environmental issues, and language arts!

For this Language Arts review, we’ve focused on a section of the Frogland website that doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it does have over a dozen short stories that feature frogs, all with a thought-provoking moral or lesson.

There is also a caveat: “Frog Lovers be-warned! These stories often have VERY UNFORTUNATE endings for the frog!!”

Here are some examples of what you will find:

*The Scorpion and the Frog – A scorpion asks to cross a river on the back of a frog. (This is one that ends disastrously for the frog.)

*The Mouse, the Frog, and the Hawk – A frog fastens himself to a mouse by the leg, with terrible results for them both.

*Frog in a Milk Pail – A frog lands in a milk pail and does not give up until he finds a way out. (This one has a happy ending.)

Many of these stories have been used to pass down collected wisdom from one generation to another. See how many are familiar, and how many new ones you can discover. The thought provoking fables can be used to increase your student’s cultural literacy. They are great conversation and story starters as well.

When you’ve read them all, explore the rest of the Frogland site that has lots of frog-themed information, resources, and games.

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Children’s Literature Games & Puzzles

November 2nd, 2011

Hi! It’s Wednesday, November 2, 2011 and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
Hoadworks.com

Age Range: 9 and up (approximately, with parental supervision)

This website was developed by an English language and literature teacher who is also the president of a media company that promotes literacy through innovative educational content, resources, and fun games, puzzles, and quizzes.

When you get to the site, scroll down the page to find the menu of free activities that includes:

*Lit Quizzes – Answer multiple choice questions about children’s books such as Watership Down, Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix, and Dork in Disguise. Can you answer questions about Roald Dahl’s life? (He is the author of such classics as Mathilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, etc.)

*Crossword Puzzles – Brush up on vocabulary, spelling, and logic and reasoning skills with this assortment of puzzles about children’s authors, history, science, and more.

*Assorted Games – Test your skill with word games, word scrambles, spoonerisms, poems, and more!

*Bio Quizzes – Answer questions about the lives of famous historical people such as Galileo, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Mozart, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you’re through exploring the games, click on “Word Play” on the horizontal menu at the top of the page. A new page opens called “The Vocabaret.” Click on the words “hundreds of archived word puzzles” in the description to unlock a treasure trove of word plays and puzzles that are sure to challenge and boost your vocabulary.

There is so much content here that I simply could not review it all. Therefore, as always, parents should preview the games for suitability of content and supervise all Internet use.

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Make Your Own Comic Book Online!

October 26th, 2011

Hi!  It’s Wednesday, October 26, 2011, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
PimPamPum – Bubblr

Age Range: 4-18 (Important: Requires parental supervision.)

Here’s a fun idea! Create your own comic book!  At this website you can select free (Creative Commons) photos from Flickr, and then add your own speech bubbles or thought bubbles to the photo. Chain the photos together to create a comic book, then publish it for the world to see!

Just follow these directions you get to the site:

Step 1: Select a photo. To do this, first you decide on a “tag” (search term) that will generate photos of what you want. For example, if you choose “puppies,” you will be presented with hundreds of photos of puppies. (IMPORTANT:  You will want to help your child select the tags and photos, as not all images on the internet are kid friendly.) When you see one you want to use, just click on it, and it will appear on the selected page of your book. (Don’t worry; if you change your mind, you can click on “delete” at the bottom right of the photo and it will go away. This is also handy if you want to re-arrange the photos.)

Step 2: Select a word (or thought) bubble and drag it onto your selected photo. Once you have placed the word bubble you can type whatever text you want into the bubble. You can also click and drag the tip of the bubble to point toward the speaker, and you can use “back space” to remove extra blank lines at the bottom of the bubble to make it smaller. You cannot move the bubble itself once it has been placed. However, you can delete and re-select the photo; this clears the bubbles and you can try again. 

Step 3: Go back to Step 1 and repeat the process until your book is completed. (It looks like the maximum length for a book is 26 pages.)

Step 4: Publish. Title your work and name the author. Use a fictitious name, if you like. You can also send a link to your story to others. Word to the wise: Sharing your story with yourself and family/friends in this way will make it easier for you and them to find it later.

If you’d like to see stories created by others, you can click on “…or visit the archive” near the top of the page.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: Content changes frequently and is not moderated; sometimes stories are generated by students as part of a class assignment, but not always. Preview this site and the stories for suitable content before sharing them with your children.

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Literacy, Spelling, & Grammar Activities!

October 19th, 2011

Hi! It’s Wednesday, October 19, 2011, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
Ambleweb

Age Range: 7-12 (with parental supervision)

The Ambleside Primary School faculty and fourth-year students created the free language arts games and activities on this site. The math portion of this site was reviewed in ClickSchooling in 2005 and is still useful. Today’s review focuses on the literacy portion of this site that appears in two sections as follows:

I. When you get to the site you’ll see the word “Literacy” and below it a menu that includes short “Click-On” activities as follows:

*Interactive spelling worksheets -Cclick and drag the missing letters to the blank spaces where they belong to complete the words.

*Proverbs – Click and drag the first and last parts of each proverb to place them together.

*Adjectives, Nouns, Verbs, and Prepositions – Drag each word into the correct category.

*Word Finder – Given a word, see how many smaller words can be made from its letters.

*Sentence Sorter – Put the words in order to create a sentence that makes sense.

II. Below the above menu, click on the words “Ambleweb Literacy Page“ to find:

*Look, Cover, Write, and Check – A customizable spelling list. You look at the word, then click “cover” and type the word from memory. You will be informed whether you got the word correct or not.

*Book Reviews – Read reviews submitted by (mostly young) website visitors, or submit your own!

*Word Games and Quizzes – Create stories, limericks, or haiku. Work on vocabulary, spelling, reading comprehension, and more!

*Best Internet Resources – A long list of recommended links for further Language Arts learning and practice. (I did not review these links, so parents, as always, should preview the sites and supervise Internet use.)

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Creative Writing Activities!

October 12th, 2011

Hi!  It’s Wednesday, October 12, 2011 and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
BruceVanPatter.com: Let’s Get Creative!

Age Range: 5 and up (with parental supervision)

This website offers over 300 pages of fun activities to help kids enjoy creative writing! The designer, Bruce Van Patter, is an illustrator who shows kids how to bring their ideas for stories to life. He does offer some creative writing helps that can be purchased, but you don’t have to buy a thing to access the many freebies.

When you get to the site, you’ll see some featured activity pages. Look at the menu on the left side of the screen under the heading “A Quick List of Fun Stuff” that includes:

*The Story Kitchen – Enjoy using creative, interactive story-writing prompts.

*Mugshots – Click on a picture of a character and answer a set of  questions to create your story’s character!

*KidTales – Use the one of Bruce’s fun drawings to inspire a story of your own!

*What-if Genie – Look at the top of the page to read a “What-if” question that will inspire a story. Refresh the page to get a new one.

*Creative Times – Develop a story based on a wacky news headline!

*DaVinci’s Doodles – What is the story potential of a doodle? Try this activity and find out!

*Wacky Headlines – Help your child write “outside the box” by using parts of speech to create elements of randomness.

You’ll find many more activities to choose from too.

Be sure to check out what Van Patter has “For Families” in the horizontal menu bar located at the top of the home page.

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