World’s Worst Pet

Help your students build a rich vocabulary of essential words! World’s Worst Pet exposes students to over 1000 Tier Two words at 6 different levels through four engaging games. Aligned to the Common Core, this app provides student-friendly definitions, a playful narrative, a fun reward system and thought-provoking writing prompts!

World’s Worst Pet is part of i-Ready— an award-winning, blended learning program published by Curriculum Associates. Learn more about i-Ready at i-ready.com/empower.

FEATURES

World’s Worst Pet is structured to provide repeated exposures to a cluster of conceptually related target words.
• Teaches more than 1000 words across five grade levels, from grades 4 – 8 with content available for students who are working a level behind
• Student-friendly definitions provide clear explanations with rich examples that illustrate how each word is used.
• Engaging narrative and reward system keeps students motivated
• Activities include word context, word sort, synonyms, and antonyms.
• Students see the same word multiple times in a single set of activities.
• Includes Spanish cognates
• Includes immediate feedback
• Uses a real human voice not synthesized robotic speech
• Aligns with Common Core State Standards
• Writing prompts provide an opportunity to use words in types of writing identified by the Common Core

RESEARCH BASE

World’s Worst Pet leverages best practices from Reading research
• Targets Tier Two words, selected from research-based lists.
• Also targets domain-specific words, including science and social studies words.
• Teaches words in conceptually related clusters
• Provides clear student-friendly explanations
• Provides multiple exposures and repeated practice across a variety of contexts
• Helps students make multiple connections between words and their experiences.
• Explores word relationships, including synonyms and antonyms
• Includes Spanish cognates such as vehículo for vehicle or numeroso for numerous
• Includes writing prompts focused on the target words in each cluster

ALIGNED TO COMMON CORE

World’s Worst Pet develops concepts, skills, and strategies as targeted by the Common Core.
• “The importance of students acquiring a rich and varied vocabulary,” write the authors of the Common Core, “cannot be overstated.”
• Tier Two words are central to understanding complex text, and World’s Worst Pet provides multiple exposures and repeated practice in these words.
• Aligns with vocabulary standards in these sections of the Common Core State Standards:
o Reading Standards for Literature
o Reading Standards for Information Text
o Language Standards: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

NO LONGER FREE!  SORRY (MAKE SURE YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG SO YOU GET INSTANT ACCESS TO FREE APPS!)

CSI Literacy Library

**Originally $124.99!**

From iTunes:

The CSI Literacy Library contains 25 engaging, leveled, chapter-length texts specifically designed for developing readers in grades 3-5. Either at home or in the classroom, readers can develop their comprehension skills with interactive tools.

This app is part of the CSI Literacy series, which builds comprehension, vocabulary, and world knowledge across a variety of subjects in fiction and nonfiction.

For readers 8–11+.

Featuring interactive tools for:
• Annotation, highlighting and drawing
• Zooming
• Note-taking
• Pop-up video
• Glossary
• Index

Grade 3 Titles
Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees
Terrifying Beast of the Deep
Aliens: Uggles Meet Wopples
Taken for Granted
Underwater Worlds
The Boy Who Saved Too Much
The Right Angle
Who Did It?

Grade 4 Titles
The Science of Sleep
What a Mess!
Big Bugs, Bad Bugs
The Garden
Atolls
Ice Pilots
Infinity
The Man Who Changed the World

Grade 5 Titles
Hissy Fits
It’s a Deal
It’s a Numbers Game
Who Knew?
A Guide to Time Travel
Monster Hunting
Crash!
Diary of Invisible Me
The Great Earth Magnet

Biblionasium is a new site for students to keep an online reading record, get book suggestions, find books at their reading level, and share their book recommendations with other students.  Please check out the features with this introductory video:

The best part is that it is free.  This could be a great addition to you Reader’s Workshop next year.

Happy tech trails Blue Devils!

Quick Response (QR) Codes are a great and easy way to incorporate technology into your classroom.  Many teachers have started using them for end of the year projects.  Some examples are bulletin board displays with audio recordings of student’s reading their writing, white book recordings, book talks to post on novels, and scavenger hunts.  QR codes are easy to make.  You need to have a document, link, audio or video file, or picture that you can enter into the QR generator.  Then you just copy and paste the code into a Word document an print.  If you would like to learn more or would like me to come in an help you with a project like this, just let me know.

Happy tech trails, Blue Devils!

Read Write Think

I have used this website for years now and I am excited by the changes and growth that has occurred.  At ReadWriteThink, their mission is to provide educators, parents, and professionals with access to the highest quality practices in reading and language arts instruction by offering the very best in free materials. There are tons of free resources for you to use.  Two of the latest additions to this site are “Student Interactives” and “Mobile Apps“.  

Student Interactives

“Engage your students in online literacy learning with these interactive tools that help them accomplish a variety of goals—from organizing their thoughts to learning about language—all while having fun.”

These are great to use with your interactive white boards and may be great for mini-lessons during workshop.  The site also has a bunch of lesson plans and the mobile app, “Trading Cards” is already installed on your iPad cart.

Happy tech trails Blue Devils!

From iTunes:

FREE for ONE day only with Smart Apps for Kids http://www.smartappsforkids.com to celebrate April Autism Awareness Month.

Reading Comprehension Science for Kindergarten and First Grade has twenty stories about the science related young children’s daily life. You can also create and add your own stories to the app.

Each story has about 90 – 120 words. Each story introduces new vocabulary and concepts, and is followed by a set of exercises that measure the student’s comprehension. The exercises include multiple choice questions, true/false questions and matching exercises that ask the student to match words or concepts with their definition.

The app allows unlimited individual users, and provides detailed reports on each student’s progress. The app can be configured to email the progress reports to a parent or teacher.

There are two modes: Practice Mode and Test Mode. In practice mode, the student is given visual and audio feedback as they answer each question.

You can create and add your own stories, along with images and questions. You can sync all the data (stories, images, questions, user accounts, reports, etc.) to your dropbox account, and import all the data to another iPad.

This app helps develop reading, vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Today I had a great time working with the young writers in Linda Steele’s kindergarten at Lincoln School.  Her students have been working on writing “All About…” books as part of their Writers Workshop program.  After working very hard on their books, Linda wanted a unique way to share the pieces.  Since they are emerging writers and sometimes their words are their own creations, Linda decided to use QR codes as a way to have students read their books to anyone at anytime.  I went in today and recorded the students reading their books using the Sound Cloud website.

We are now converting the links to a QR code that will be put on the book and also on the bulletin board.  Anyone with a smart phone and QR reader will be able to scan the code and hear these young writers sharing their wonderful work!  Here is an example of one story: (QR Code not visible on mobile device, open on computer and scan)

Way to go Linda and my new kindergarten friends.

Happy tech trails Blue Devils!

Did you know that next Friday, April 12th, is national D.E.A.R. (“Drop Everything and Read”) Day?  This day coincides with the birthday of noted children’s book author Beverly Cleary.  In her book Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Beverly introduced many of us to the concept of D.E.A.R. time.  As a huge fan of the Ramona series, I still get upset when anyone refers to this reading time as anything else, especially “S.Q.U.I.R.T.”!  This website was developed to provide teachers with resources and ideas for student reading in the classroom.  It is also a great site to use for an author study on Mrs. Cleary.

Happy tech trails Blue Devils!

“When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.” – Kathleen Kelly “You’ve Got Mail”

Blue Devils, did you know that tomorrow is World Read Aloud Day?  I know that you all read aloud to your classes every day, so why not celebrate?  LitWorld has activities and a downloadable picture book that you can use to recognize the importance of reading to children.

There is also a blog that highlights literacy around the world.  There are posts about WRAD in Kenya, favorite read aloud memories, and much more.

Happy tech trails, Blue Devils!

Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery : a creativity-enhancing kid’s book by Jamie Lee Curtis

Description

From iTunes:

Your child’s imagination will soar with this magical storytelling app! Rich interactive experiences they’ll return to time and time again! See why People Magazine called it “cool” and “loads of fun”!

Get a personal tour of the app from Jamie Lee Curtis herself by copying-n-pasting this link into another browser window: www.bit.ly/vibal2

Jamie Lee Curtis’ beloved children’s book has been re-imagined and transformed into a breathtaking interactive experience that lets you follow a balloon on its imaginary journey after it’s accidentally released from a little boy’s grasp.

This app has been specifically designed to provide hour after hour of entertainment and creative play. Highlights include the chance to:

★ Create your own animated movies in the Balloon Theater: Your creativity’s in the spotlight as you build your own balloon characters (you can even use your own picture!), record dialog and enact scenes.

★ Clown around by creating your own balloon animals: “inflate” virtual balloons then swipe the screen to twist and turn them into fun shapes.

★ Have a giggle-fit listening to a funny “helium version” of your voice! (try singing your child’s favorite song and playing it back: guaranteed laughs!)

★ Send hand-written e-postcards to your friends and family as you join the missing balloon on vacation.

★ Make over 200 balloons sway in time to the music at the “Big Balloon Dance” (can you find them all?)

★ Use a virtual fan to blow the balloons around, play with your food at the balloon dinner-table, connect-the-dots to create new constellations in space, and much, much more!

★ There are literally HUNDREDS of interactions built into the app, creating a fresh experience each time!

Amidst all the fun, kids will be learning too – building valuable literacy skills thanks to the following reading options:

★ Listen to the story, narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis herself, while the text is displayed “Karaoke-style” (each word is highlighted as it’s read)

★ Touch a word on the page to highlight it and hear it spoken aloud.

Want to see more? Copy and paste this link to see our bonus YouTube video – a tour of the app’s features from Jamie Lee herself!: bit.ly/vibal2