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LANGUAGE ARTS, SPELLING, VOCABULARY LINKS | |
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Got any ideas for more English, Literature, Language Arts, Spelling, Vocabulary Links?
Please e-mail
them to me at the address below.
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SONG: "Create in Me a Clean Heart"
Midi-Player: courtesy of Crescendo -
The Children's Literature Web Guide
GRADE LEVEL: All Ages; Secular
COMMENTS: Links to all kinds of children's literature sites. Under Stories On the Web, you can link to full length versions of famous classics in literature and poetry. Also features "Meet the Author" Sites if your child has a favorite author he would like to know more about. Don't know what book might be good to get your child to read? There are lots of recommended reading lists at this site too.
GRADE LEVEL: All Ages; Secular
COMMENTS: Links to all kinds of author and illustrator's pages on the web. "Many readers are curious about the creators of the books they enjoy. The more than five hundred links to author/illustrator sites included here will help to satisfy that curiosity. Young people especially want to know about their favorite authors/illustrators because they
often feel that an author/illustrator is speaking directly and personally to them through the work. Learning about authors/illustrators can also help young people see possible
connections between a creator's life and the works created and encourage them to consider different techniques and approaches to the compositional act."
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
GRADE LEVEL: High School; Secular
COMMENTS: A fantastic site! Read many of Shakespeare's work on-line with a very SPECIAL difference! Archaic words are hot-linked to a glossary so that your student can IMMEDIATELY understand the word without leaving his reading! You can also search for keywords, or go to a page which contains famous Shakespearean Quotations.
Citing Electronic Resources
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-High School; Secular
COMMENTS: WHEW! We got into this one with my daughter's sixth grade research paper. When doing the bibliography, how do you PROPERLY cite INTERNET sources? We found out here! Something I certainly didn't need to learn in school but kids today need this information.
Word Games at Camelot
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary-College; Secular
COMMENTS: This is a download area to obtain "Word Games at Camelot". This is an action game, (complete description of game on this page too), with the purpose of teaching vocabulary and word usage. The download version has 1000 words so it is DEFINITELY worth looking at. You can set the difficulty of the word list anywhere between Beginner thru SAT/College level! Take a look! (I didn't know what "nascent" meant! It will teach you, too!)
ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication(ERIC/REC)
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary-Parents; Secular
COMMENTS: "This site is dedicated to providing educational materials, services, and coursework to everyone interested in the language arts."
There are MANY links at this site. To whet your appetite, some of them are: Q & A Services, Free Lesson Plans, Parents & Children Together On-line, Parent Talk--Helping Parents Help Their Children, and Other Sources for On-line Stories.
Educational Language Arts Games to Download
GRADE LEVEL: All ages; Secular
COMMENTS: At this site you will find many educational language arts games you can download for your PC (If you have a MAC, there is a link for you at the bottom of the page). I have gotten SOOOOO much here that I have to let you in on these great shareware/freeware language arts games.
Spelling Games
GRADE LEVEL: Grades K-Middle School; Secular
COMMENTS: This is a downloadable site for Spelling Games. The word lists already in the computer that you can choose from are hard enough to test your child's spelling ability, but you can create and test YOUR own list! There are 8 games to play with any list. My favorite is Word Worm where you steer the worm to gobble up letters in the correct order to spell a selected word...cute graphics and sound effects. Add some spark to your spelling drills and tests with this great software by KIDware.
Animated Beginning Typing
GRADE LEVEL: Grades K-Adult; Secular
COMMENTS: Why am I putting this on my English page? Well, if your child learns to type correctly and early in life, he can begin to do some of his creative writing in a word processing program.
This is a download site for one of the MOST INCREDIBLE learn-to-type programs I have ever seen! Talk about high interest!!!!!!! Beginning typists through advanced may practice on this shareware version. Select a few keys to practice or all 26 letters. Select which kind of drill you want too. Get help by looking at the screen with where the key is and what finger hits it at the same time you are practicing so you don't look down! When you are successful with your practice, WOW! Get a mini-animation program...it is so cute! If you register this shareware, you will get more animation but even this shareware version has alot in it. Don't miss this! Let me know how you like it! (A plug for e-mailing me---see the top of the page!) HA-HA!
Vocabulary.com
GRADE LEVEL: Upper Elementary-High School; Secular
COMMENTS: "Learning vocabulary can be fun for everyone! Compete for prizes in monthly word puzzle contests. Enjoy grade specific puzzles, comic strips, word games and many other ways to sharpen your skills. Endorsed by teachers, these quizzes can be used to prepare for the PSAT(R), SAT(R), SSAT, GRE or LSAT tests."
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-High School
COMMENTS: This is the site containing the "Web's largest collection of topics, ideas, and assistance for school related research projects...Explore our
giant directory and select from over four thousand research topics across more than one hundred categories. Begin your research immediately by launching instant searches for relevant information on your topic using Electric Library and Infoseek!
"Improve the style and presentation of your
reports with the Writing Center. Learn the most effective ways to organize and complete your next research assignment with our step by step guides. And, over one hundred new pages of writing tips and techniques provide quick answers to common questions about punctuation,grammar, and spelling."
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-High School
COMMENTS: This is an encouraging, helpful site for children who want to be a writer someday. The author of this site wanted to be one when she was 11 and she is one today! This site encourages and helps young writer's get inspired to continue to write and gives them help in learning about the writing process and in getting published.
Click here to go to my daughter's site At her site you will see her original stories, poems and cartoons. She wants to be an author someday and she'd love it if you signed her guestbook with some encouraging words about her efforts :-)
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary-High School
COMMENTS: About.com has done it again! Another great site containing links to help young writers in the creative writing process. They provide links to sites about anything grammatical--punctuation, clauses, the different parts of speech, sentence help, and how to do historical research and more. A great English source.
Curriculum Areas from Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary-High School
COMMENTS: Those of you who do Unit Studies will really want to check out this page. From her list, click on the topic you are studying. This will bring up the books you need to get at the library and some educational activities you can use with the book! This site has other pages I have not yet reviewed, so happy exploring!
Children's Literature--Book Shelves--Fairrosa Cyber Library
GRADE LEVEL: All Ages; Secular
COMMENTS: Quite a lot available to read on-line at this Cyber-Library! Read famous classics like Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green Gables, Aesop's Fables, Andersen's Fairy Tales, selected poetry and rhymes and much more. There are also links to on-line magazines that contain good literature. The links at the top of the page will also lead you to author and illustrator sites. Want to read a review of a book? There is a link to Book Reviews here too.
The Elements of Style--William Strunk, 1918
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-Adult; Secular
COMMENTS: Have you ever had some questions when it comes to style while grading your child's compositions? Come to this site. Use this site to teach English Composition and higher-level spelling skills. Topics include: 1) Elementary Rules of Usage, 2) Elementary Principles of Composition, 3) A Few Matters of Form, 4) Words and Expressions Commonly Misused, and 5) Words Commonly Mispelled.
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-Adult; Secular
COMMENTS: Greek (and other cultures') mythology is everywhere in our culture. Take the FTD florist symbol...the winged deliverer...what about the APOLLO Space Mission? Teach your child some of the Greek gods and goddesses while you are studying Ancient Greece. A CAUTION: Be aware that too many times the stories surrounding the gods and goddesses are sexual in nature. Not for young children. At this site you will find "an encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, legends, and more. It contains over 5700 definitions of gods and goddesses, supernatural beings and legendary creatures and monsters from all over the world. Some of the topics you will find here, are about:
o Legendary animals such as unicorns and dragons;
o Objects like Excalibur and Mjollnir;
o Gods and goddesses from many religions, including Greek, Japanese, Hindu, and Native American;
o Imaginative places such as Atlantis, Avalon, and Thule;
o Supernatural creatures such as gnomes, leprechauns, and fairies... and many, many more."
If that is not enough information for you, click here to go to another page containing links to MYTHOLOGY MEGASITES provided by Multinomah Public Library, AZ.
Aesop's Fables: Online Collection--655+ Fables AND MORE!!!!!!
GRADE LEVEL: All Ages; Secular
COMMENTS: Read the biography of Aesop, one of the famous Greek poets--click on Section 1 on the chart and choose Life of Aesop--there are two versions there. Read 655 of his fables complete with morals! Some of the fables have pictures and some have a REAL AUDIO segment attached. One caution: Many of the stories refer to "ass" for a donkey. You will have to deal with that.
There are also 127 Hans Christian Andersen Tales here too. Two L. Frank Baum stories are here also and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Barbara & Douglas Smith: Third Floor Publishing--Literature Study/Building Writers
GRADE LEVEL: Upper elementary-High school Ages; Secular
COMMENTS: Barbara and Douglas Smith have put much work into this Literature and English site. On one page entitled "Literature Study", you will find many activities to use for your children involving famous literary works. On the following page, you will find a page entitled, "Building Writers" where you will find wonderful information on how to do just that! I found some wonderful information on how to teach writing skills...there is even information on what NOT to do!
BBC Education: Look and Read: Spywatch
GRADE LEVEL: Ages 7-9; Secular
COMMENTS: This is a comic strip adventure, with literacy activities for 7 to 9 year olds. It is based on the popular BBC Schools television series of the same name. You must have the Macromedia Shockwave Flash 3 plug-in to do these activities. In order to save on-line time, you can even download the whole of Spywatch. You can print notes on the whole site so that you, as a teacher, know what the adventure is all about and what concepts are practiced. Print out a "Spybook" for your child so they can record clues they gather along the way like a real detective. Your child will get practice in reading skills and have fun along the way at this site!
The Fluency Through Fables Index
GRADE LEVEL: Reading level grade 3-5; Secular
COMMENTS: There are six fables available at this site. Your child reads the fable on-line and then completes exercises of the following types: Vocabulary Matching, Vocabulary Completion, Multiple Choice Comprehension Exercises and Written Discussion Exercises. A nice change for a day!
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-Adult; Secular
COMMENTS: A very valuable site that provides a daily thought-provoking quotation, vocabulary word, educational trivia and a "this-day-in-history-type" digest.
Of particular value is the vocabulary word section which can be used for independent study...students will get the meaning of the word, synonyms for the new word, sentence examples showing the proper usage for the word AND they can even get an audio pronunication of the new word! They can also play the VOCABULARY FLASHCARDS GAME...the link for that is at the bottom of this site's page.
Also a helpful part of this site is their RECIPROCAL LINKS page. Click first on that link and then on the WEB SITES AND RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS link--you will come to a page similar to what I have designed at this site....web links categorized by subject matter useful in educating your child. There are SOOOOOO many useful links here but there is also a short commentary as to what you will find at each link! Our thanks to Dr. Vicki F. Sharp and Dr. Richard M. Sharp, Professors of Elementary Education at California State University, Northridge who developed this page. They have included sites to lesson plans, instructional materials, online activities and projects, and virtual trips to museums and countries around the world.
Writing--Web Topic--France and Associates
GRADE LEVEL: All ages 3-5; Secular
COMMENTS: You will find many links to writing sites. Some of them will be good for teaching techniques; others will be helpful in generating ideas for writing. There is also a section where Writing Resources are listed featuring books, CD-ROM's, videos, and kits. Links to places where kids can publish their writing attempts and links to available contests are also provided.
GRADE LEVEL: All ages; Secular
COMMENTS: My thanks to Jennifer S., a web-site visitor, who sent me this useful link and great idea! "This is a site that allows YOU to create puzzles and games for your newsletters, flyers, handouts or classroom assignments." She says she uses it for her child's spelling words! Some of the puzzles available include: Word Search, Mazes, Criss-cross puzzle, Cryptograms, Criss-Cross Puzzle, Letter Tiles and more. There are even some here you can use for math time.
Fairytale Resources for Primary Grades
GRADE LEVEL: Grades 1-3; Secular
COMMENTS: There are two text-only collections you may go to from this site: (1) Tales of Wonder--Folk and Fairy Tales from Around the World: find fairy tales from a particular country (or a Native American Tale), and (2) Grimm Fairy Tale Collection: find favorites such as "Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves" or "The Elves and Shoemaker".