"Tips-o-Matic"
This site that offers a concise look at sentence, paragraph, and essay structure. When you turn
"Tips-o-Matic" off, you can work on reading comprehension skills by looking at the "feature topic of the day" (complete with audio and
pictures) and taking quizzes on the information.
http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/contents.htm
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30 Days of Poetry
Although this was originally set up for secondary level writers, I felt many of the ideas could be carried out by fifth graders. If you need poetry activities, you’ll like this site.
http://www.msrogers.com/English2/poetry/30_days_of_poetry.htm
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5 Paragraph Essay
You do not have to be a wizard to learn to write excellent five-paragraph essays. You do need some basic skill and practice. At this site, you will find the information you need to learn how to write the essay as well as some writing prompts to help you develop skill. With a little bit of effort, you will create your own written wizardry.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/1437/index.html
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6+1 Traits Writing
The 6+1 TraitTM Writing framework is a powerful way to learn and use a common language to refer to characteristics of writing as well as create a common vision of what 'good' writing looks like. Teachers and students can use the 6+1 TraitTM model to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness as they continue to focus on continued writing improvement.
http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/department.asp?d=1
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Authors and Illustrators
Is anyone doing book reports? Would you like your kids to research the authors and illustrators? Or would you just like to know more about the people you are reading as a group? Well here is a great reference library of authors and illustrators.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/authors.html
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Basic Essay Writing
An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is the same no matter what. You may be writing an essay to argue for a particular point of view or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task.
Either way, your essay will have the same basic format.
If you follow a few simple steps, you will find that the essay almost writes itself. You will be responsible only for supplying ideas, which are the important part of the essay anyway.
http://members.tripod.com/~lklivingston/essay/
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California Reading List
Welcome to the California Reading List Web Site
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/readinglist.asp
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Captions Help Tell the Story
Students look at three pictures and try to determine which caption fits best.
http://www.tv411.org/lessons/cfm/reading.cfm?str=reading&num=2&act=4&que=1
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Cinquain Poetry
In this lesson, students will write a Cinquain poem, add an appropriate graphic, and format the text. They will use the Internet to get appropriate pictures for illustration. Samples and directions are given in both AppleWorks and PDF formats.
http://www.eusd4kids.org/edtech/handouts/5th/5Cinquain.sit
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Comic Creator
The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). Very fun!
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/cartoon10.swf
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Compare and Contrast Tutorial
This site reviews how to identify compare and contrast when reading a selection. Students can also download and print a practice page. There are also links to other excellent compare/contrast activities.
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/rcccon1.htm
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Compare and Contrast Tutorial
Students can download and print a practice page. There are also links to other excellent compare/contrast activities.
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/rcccon1.htm
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Create a Poetry Calendar
In this lesson, students research, design, and create a school-year calendar based on the work of famous poets. The activity, which can take 4-5 class periods to complete, is a great culminating activity for a poetry unit for grades 3-12. Lots of technology skills are incorporated into this project.
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/techlp/techlp027.shtml
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Cyber Guides to Literature: The Sign of the Beave
Based on Elizabeth G. Speare's historical novel, The Sign of the Beaver, and is designed to supplement a unit focused on American colonial life and the Native American cultural themes of the novel. This CyberGuide is anchored in fifth grade language arts and social studies, however, it may be extended to additional grades and subjects.
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/beav/beavtg.html
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CyberWriting
Posted each month is a list of "CyberWriting" prompts.
http://www.hickman.k12.ca.us/cyberwriter/writing.html
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Drawing Inferences
This site offers a tutorial and practice for your students on being a critical reader by drawing inferences.
http://www.tv411.org/lessons/cfm/reading.cfm?str=reading&num=11&act=2&que=1
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e-encyclopedia
...an easy-to-use, online encyclopedia produced by Dorling Kindersley and powered by Google; it includes both DK content and images and links to related Web sites
http://www.dke-encyc.com/home.asp
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Giggle Poetry
This is a site students can visit and enjoy to learn how to go about writing some fun and effective poetry. Lots of funny poems, poetry contests, and more!
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/
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Grammar Gym: Pronouns
Definitions and usage explanations of different types of pronouns. Includes several exercises
CA ELA Standards-Writing: 1.2.
http://athena.english.vt.edu/~IDLE/Gym2/workout6/w6.warmup.html
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Graphic Organizers
A good source of printable graphic organizers
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/lesson-plans/lesson-6293.html?detoured=1
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Graphic Organizers for Reading Comprehension
Graphic organizers help students construct meaning. The following organizers (downloaded in PDF format) can be used with any book and across all grade levels. Use them to assess your students understanding of what they are reading, observe their thinking process on what you read as a class, as a group, or independently.
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2983
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Guide to Grammar & Writing
Highly detailed and specific site that provides explanation and guidance for every level of writing. Quizzes, a write-in feature and PowerPoint presentations are all available features.
CA ELA Standards-Writing: 1.2
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
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Hispanic Heritage Month
September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Education World offers a piñata full of activities that will help teachers focus attention on the contributions of people of Hispanic heritage to the history of the United States. I discovered this one a little late, but it has lots of great ideas and links that go across curriculums. There is a tie-in to word origins as well as links to explorers.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson023.shtml
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Hooray for Heroes Theme Unit
This could be used at any appropriate time during the school year. This webpage gives a nice list of cross-curricular, character-building activities for exploring the concept of heroism.
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5288
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Houghton Mifflin Reading Support
I know many of you have probably visited the Eduplace.com resource that goes along with our reading textbook, but if you haven’t, I think you’ll find it useful. There are links for students and teachers, but my favorite activities were in “Kid’s Place.”
http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hmr/5/
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How Volcanoes Work:
This website is an educational resource that describes the science behind volcanoes and volcanic processes.
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/
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Image Grammar
http://www3.uakron.edu/noden/index.html
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Inference Riddles
Successful readers make guesses based on what they read and what they already know. The object of this game is to infer what is being described by the clues you read. More of a just-for-fun site, but still it gets students thinking how inferences work.
http://www.philtulga.com/Riddles.html
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Inferential Context Clues
Some students get upset when the teacher states, "The answer is right there!" This site reviews how clues appear where the meaning is hidden in the rest of the words in the sentence. A brief interactive quiz helps assure understanding.
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/ccinfer.htm
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Instant Poetry Forms:
This site consists of more than sixty interactive literacy activities.
Students can point, click and add words to the frame of a
poem. With a quick click on the button below the form, the writer's
words are magically added, completing each line. At that point, poets
are invited to export their draft into a word processor for further
revision and editing, (choose font, clip art, a border, etc.) An
interactive poetry form finder on the website categorizes the forms by
topic (or language skill) to help literacy teachers find just the right
form for the mini-lesson of the moment. An interesting, fun tool.
ELA Standard: Structural Features of Literature 3.1
http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm
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Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators: Readability I
Need to figure out the readability of that new grade-level novel? Want to easily find out how to determine the reading level of a Web page? I have been given permission to post the Fry Readability directions and graphs on this page, and have also included links to other readability formulas for use in the classroom CA ELA Standards-Reading: 2.0 and 2.3
http://kathyschrock.net/fry/fry.html
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Mad-Libs
Here are some on-line mad-libs. These are fun to print out or do online. Send the kids here from home, or do them in those rare spare minutes as a group. Just a silly stop.
http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
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Main Idea and Detail
Students can guide themselves through this website that reviews and allows them to practice the important comprehension skill of main idea. It starts out easy then progresses to more difficult reading passages. A very kid-friendly site.
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/rcmi1.htm
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Making 6 Trait Writing Fun
When everyone needs a break from using picture books to teach narrative writing, make writing fun for both teacher and students by adding an art component to some of your writing activities. Students need to practice the kind of writing required for state testing programs, but there are many ways to prepare them for the test and help them acquire the skills they need.
http://www.geocities.com/oberry1790/writingart.html
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Mother's Day Poetry
Poems that can be used with gifts made for mom.
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems57.html
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Noah Webster's Birthday
On October 16, wordsmiths across the United States will celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Noah Webster, considered by many to be the father of the American dictionary. What a perfect time to celebrate words! If you'd like to recognize Webster's birthday, these lessons and other resources will help you to do that in a special way.
http://www.education-world.com/a_special/words.shtml
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OneLook
...a website that indexes over 970 dictionaries and over six million references! The simple interface makes this useful for classroom use.
http://www.onelook.com
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Paragraphs and Topic Sentences
Students match topic sentence cards to their correct body sentences cards. Includes a PDF worksheet you can download.
http://www.teachercreated.com/lessons/001110il.shtml
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Paragraphs Tutorial
Topics include Parts of a Paragraph, How to Write a Paragraph, and Kinds of Paragraphs.
http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/paragrap/index.htm
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Personal Narrative Writing
These sites have tips and examples for writing strong leads for paragraphs and structuring personal narrative writing. Students can learn how to capture and hold their readers' attention. There are classroom activities, online quizzes and exercises, and ideas to help writers develop their skills. Includes links to eThemes on grammar and interactive writing activities.
http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001693.shtml
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Persuasive Writing - Commercial Style
Students first write TV commercials to persuade consumers to buy products, then dramatize the commercials for videotaping.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tsl/archives/02-1/lesson024.shtml
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Persuasive Writing Workshop
During this workshop, you will take students step-by-step through the process of writing a persuasive essay. A very well-organized site from Scholastic that includes mini-lessons and a breakdown of the writing process for writing a persuasive essay.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/writing/index.asp?topic=Persuasive
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PIZZAZ
This site offers ideas for poetry and ways to write it. Click on a poetry type to see examples and a lesson plan idea.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Eleslieob/pizzaz.html
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Poetry Memorizer
Students can select a poem from a famous poet to memorize, then use the online “Amazing, Super-Marvelous Poetry Memorizer” to help them learn it. You can also enter any other poem of your choice to memorize.
http://www.northernsites.com/poetry_memorizer/
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Poetry Patterns:
This site offers ideas for teaching poetry. The links include instructions, examples, and forms for writing such as an auto-bio poem, color poems, and a haiku.
http://www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/fourth/writing/poetry_patterns.htm
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PowerPoint Presentations
...a huge collection of downloadable or viewable
PowerPoint presentations for grades K-12. The presentations focus on the
subject areas of language arts, math, science, social studies, and the arts.
There are a collection of interesting tutorials and teacher-tools in
the navigation bar to the right that you may want to view...
http://jc-schools.net/ppt.html
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Read-Write-Think
The lead of a story is the beginning, and yet it can be the end if the reader is not entranced immediately. Here is a lesson for teaching your students how to write good leads.
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=16
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Reading Quest.org:
Offers clear, concise descriptions of reading and writing strategies. It also has pdf files of templates or worksheets associated with the strategies.
http://www.readingquest.org
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The Legend of the Meeps Island Flying Frog
Share "The Legend of the Meeps Island Flying Frog" on the American Museum of Natural History Web site. Then ask students to use the ready-to-color illustrations that accompany the story to create their own retellings of the story. Students can add dialogue and other characters to their versions.
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/Endangered/meeps/index.html
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Using Transitions
Students learn the importance of using transitional phrases in their writing. It includes a nice list of transition words and a PDF worksheet you can download.
http://www.teachercreated.com/lessons/000818cl.shtml
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Volcano World: Premier Source of Volcano Informati
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html
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Why Not a Woman? Webquest
Students work in groups to investigate some federal holidays and learn why those holidays are observed. Then each group will choose a woman it thinks should be honored with a federal holiday, and create a presentation to convince their classmates to nominate that woman.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/webquest_orig/webquest_orig006.shtml
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Word of the Day
Educational information for students
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/wordofday.asp
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Word Play
Sites that feature fun with words.
http://www.wolinskyweb.net/word.htm
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Writing Fix
I felt this site was a gold mine of writing activities and resources for a fifth grade teacher. Some of the areas covered on this website are:
• daily and random writing topics
• "Recklessly Creative Writing Ideas"
• 6 + 1 Traits
• Writing Across the Curriculum
CA 5th Grade English-Language Arts Content Standards
Writing 1.0 Students write clear, coherent, and focused essays. The writing exhibits the students' awareness of the audience and purpose. Essays contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions. Students progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.
http://writingfix.com/
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Writing Lessons
Ready Made Writing Homework from now all the way through the end of school!
http://www.teachersdesk.org/
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