Embedded Files
Fourth Grade
§ Reading practice for ELL students (Spanish, French, German, Italian, English)
§ Kathy Diaz and a team of teachers at Stone Ranch have been using Bookadventure.com, a free site sponsored by Sylvan Learning. It allows students to take quizzes on books they read and to earn prizes.
§ KidsReads.com is like a giant online book club for kids. Share favorite books, write reviews, read reviews, talk about favorite books, series, and authors. Sponsored by Disney.
§ Kids will love Scholastic's new Flashlight Reader's book
§ You might consider starting a "Dear America Mother/Daughter Book Club" with other Dear America Mother book fans in your neighborhood or school. Here is a link to the main site for all the activities that accompany the "Dear America Book Series."
Reference Tools
* For Merriam Webster's online dictionary and thesaurus.
* One Look allows you to look up words in multiple online dictionaries at once
* By using the Visual Thesaurus students can finally see the definition and connotation of each synonym generated. Or students can easily click on any of the synonyms on the screen to open a new search for words that have that specific connotation.
* For all the poets in your class, be sure to bookmark this rhyming dictionary.
Teach your students to create bibliographies for their reports and research papers, you may want to visit Easy Bib, a free online advanced bibliography maker. Another site that is especially helpful for younger students is: Noodle Tools Quick Cite . For information on citing online resources, visit the Online Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources site: Citation Styles for Online Resources.
Literacy Strategies
Visit the Read-Write-Think website sponsored by the International Reading Associatioin, National Association of English Teachers, and Marco Polo for high quality resources for literacy instruction. You'll find graphic organizers, lesson plans, and online practice tools for students. Be sure to visit the Student Materials section. There is a template for students to create a six page Stapleless Book and the Flip A Chip word study game.
Christine Overson at Sundance has done an excellent job of organizing many of the Read-Write-Think activities by skill on the Sundance Language Arts Links page.
Graphic Organizers can be downloaded from Scholastic's site to help students use better strategies to organize and construct meaning as they read.
Scholastic's Skills and Strategies section of the Language Arts pages for teachers provide multiple resources for students to learn and practice literacy strategies. For lesson plans and activities you can search their database by grade level.
Match vocabulary words with their meaningsand donate rice to help end world hunger.
What's in the Bag? (K-2)
Word Family Sort (Short Vowels)
Picture Match (K-2)
Flip-A-Chip (Affixes & Roots)
Phonics Practice and Chants for Phonemic Awareness instruction for ELL students.
Word Roots
Quia Game for Greek and Latin Roots | Fact Monster
For student practice of Greek and Latin Roots, visit this Quia site.
Or visit Scholastic's Go for the Gold: It's Greek to Me site to practice Greek word roots at two levels.
The Fact Monster web site has a great article titled "Word Wise" that explains Greek and Latin word roots. It also includes lists of Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
The Pacific Resources for Education and Learning website has a tremendous amount of materials to increase language art and math skills for students from many cultures. You can read an excellent book, Focus on Fluency on this website. You can also search for any of the following tools to help with early literacy instruction: research papers, activities/strategies, assessments, policies, or family and community resources.
Reading Tools for Parents
Print parent newsletters about reading for your students' grade level.
Also be sure to view the many wonderful sites that support reading instruction on the Resources for Families page.
For book lists, reading, writing, math, homework help, and more visit the Links for Learning Adventures Site.
For great professional articles on writing instruction as well as activities and resources, visit Scholastic's Teaching Writing Page.
Great Resources for Writing Instruction
The Writer's Toolkit on Channel 4's BookBox website is an excellent resource for young writers. It has tools to help with getting started, character development, plot development, writing dialogue, and much more. Be sure to visit the "games" section of the site where you can learn how to write limericks, how to turn your favorite book into a film, or even try finishing the missing parts of stories.
Writer's Workshop This is an award winning site created by a teacher to share the strategies of Writer's Workshop. Until this site can be found again, try this Writer's Workshop on the Teachers First website.
Six Traits Writing Resources
Six traits writing assessment, a site for teachers using 6 traits in the classroom.
Multiple writing resources from Northwest Regional Educational Library, the Official 6 Traits site. This page has excellent definitions of the 6 traits.
6 Traits Student Friendly Rubric (5 point rubrics)
6 Point Student Friendly Rubrics for each of the 6 traits.
The Billings School District in Billings, Montana created an excellent interactive site with resources for 6 Traits.
Grammar Resources
The University of Illinois has published an online grammar handbook to use with writer's workshop.
Stufun.com is a fun site with kid-friendly grammar information
Capital Community College has prepared informational pages as well as PowerPoint presentations to explain grammar and writing concepts.
The lyrics to the Schoolhouse Rock grammar songs can be found at this site. You can also click on the titles at the bottom of the page to hear the songs.
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is a great online tool for writers. You simply click on grammar or punctuation in the sidebar and choose a topic from the pull-down menu. All the resources appear instantly.
Spelling
Kid Spell.com has multiple resources and activities to improve student spelling.
Students can practice spelling at FunBrain.com. Click onFunBrain.com for links to ALL of their online games, sorted by topic.
Vocabulary and Spelling City is a great site where you can practice spelling and vocabulary words. You can even create flash cards for special vocabulary lists.
A link to several excellent resources that improve student spelling skills.
If you're looking for an easy way to remember specific spelling rules, you can always visit the Musical Spelling Rules site to learn songs that highlight spelling rules!
High Frequency Words
Think Central website (You can also access Houghton Mifflin Reading Selections):
(Reading Book)
Selections and Topics
Unit 1: Reaching Out
Because of Winn Dixie: Helping Others
My Brother Martin: Civil Rights
My Librarian is a Camel: Media
The Power of W.O.W.!: Raising Money
Stormalong: Traditional Tales
Unit 2: Tell Me More
Invasion From Mars: Performance Arts
Coming Distractions: Media
Me and Uncle Romie: Visual Arts
Dear Mr. Winston: Research
Jose! Born to Dance: Performance Arts
Unit 3: Inside Nature
Earth's Mightiest Storms: Hurricanes
The Earth Dragon Awakes: Forces of Nature
Antarctic Journal: Interdependence
The Life and Times of the Ant: Insects
Ecology for Kids: The Environment
Unit 4: Unbreakable Spirit
Riding Freedom: Individual Contributions
The Right Dog for the Job: Service Animals
Hercules' Quest: Traditional Tales
Harvesting Hope:The Story of Cesar Chavez: Agriculture
Sacagawea: Native American History
Unit 5: Change it Up
The World According to Humphrey: Media
I Could Do That!: Citizens' Rights
The Ever Living Tree: Life Cycle
Owen and Mzee: Animal Behavior
The Fun They Had:The Complete Stories: Inventions
Unit 6: Paths to Discovery
The Girl Who Loved Spiders: Spiders
Amphibian Alert!: Amphibians
Museums Worlds of Wonder: Visual Arts
Save Timber Woods!: Conservation
Mystery at Reed's Pond: Ecology
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