Graffiti Creator

Thought I would add this link just because we are talking about Banksy today. Have used this with a group of boys who did not like writing. Visual language is a great way in to other literacies like writing and reading.



Graffiti Creator:

When you have created your own piece of Graffiti, simply take a screenshot of it like I did below.

On a Mac - shift command 4 - will save directly to your Dropbox if you have one or else it will go straight to your desktop

On a PC - Snipping Tool (in the Finder) Save as - to your pictures Folder or wherever.

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Radio New Zealand - Storytime Treasure Chest

Here is a link to some stories read aloud on Radio New Zealand. The links come with a brief synopsis of the story and and appropriate reading/listening age.

Results on ReadWriteThink - ReadWriteThink

Some great links here on writing styles and purposes.



Results on ReadWriteThink - ReadWriteThink:



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Guided reading / ELP Years 1-4 / Comprehension / Reading / Reviewed resources / Teacher needs / Literacy Online / English - ESOL - Literacy Online website - English - ESOL - Literacy Online

Guided reading / ELP Years 1-4 / Comprehension / Reading / Reviewed resources / Teacher needs / Literacy Online / English - ESOL - Literacy Online website - English - ESOL - Literacy Online:



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Scholastic Education - KeyLinks

Scholastic Education - KeyLinks:



Showcases resources developed by Jill Eggleton (a well known author of children's readers) around Shared and Guided Reading. Has examples of appropriate text at the early reading levels. You can also listen to Jill talking about shared and guided reading and watch her taking a lesson.

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Some sites you might like to check out ...

Some sites you might like to check out for when you are working with children ......

https://sites.google.com/site/easygrammar4kids/parts-of-speech 

A noun is ....

A bit of fun!

Parts of speech practice

Here is the work we did last week in class on parts of speech.

An interesting perspective on spelling (from a parent)

Check out this website post about a parent's question - Why is my kid allowed to make spelling mistakes?

Cult of pedagogy /http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/spelling-mistakes/

Using Show Me to demonstrate your learning

A discussion from the VLN forum about raising achievement for Maori boys

For those of you who are interested in this topic, have a read of some of the ideas that teachers are coming up with to address this issue. Has a link to the writing for boys inquiry that I have already included in a previous post.

http://www.vln.school.nz/discussion/view/860818

Tellagami

Tellagami is a great tool (iPad app - free) for motivating and engaging the students with oral language.

Raising writing achievement for Maori boys

Read this blog of a NZ teacher who is inqiuring into the use of e-learning to help raise the achievement of Maori boys in the conytext of writing. She has been using the iPad app Tellagami extensively for motivation and engagement.

http://writingboys.blogspot.co.nz/

Check out this blog post by Kent Somerville (a teacher at Point England School in Auckland). He is undertaking a year long inquiry into hooking kids into reading. It might be interesting to follow his progress. Leave him some comments if you feel inclined. You might also like to check out some of his professional readings and put a link to his blog on your e-portfolio under Inquiry.

A Year 8 view on writing

This young writer has written a response activity to her reading of Hatchet. Check out what she say about writing on the side of her blog.

How to use a semicolon - The Oatmeal

Found this web page today by accident. I thought, what a cool way to teach kids about the use of semicolons. Maybe some of you might find it helpful as well!

How to use a semicolon - The Oatmeal:



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Using Lifecards App for writing

Here is a quick tutorial to show you how to use the iPad app, Lifecards. It is very simple for primary age children to use, ideally Yr 3- 6. It is great for transactional writing but there are a number of different templates which can be adapted for different writing genre. If you were focussing on current events and news writing this would be a great way of teaching this genre. I also use this in conjuntion with a website called Kiwikidsnews which is written for Kiwi kids by a NZ teacher. The news items are all readable by kids which many news sites on the web are not. I get the kids to read a favourite piece of news that interests them, save an image from that story to the photo roll and then go to Lifecards and write about it in their own words.
I have taught children how to use this in 20 minutes, who are then able to teach other children afterwards.