If you are looking for a very large collection of on-line education games, Primary Games Arena has to be one of the largest I have ever seen. It is a compilation of hundreds of Flash based education games about Math, English, Science, Physical Education, Music, Spanish, German, French, Religion Education, ICT, History, Geography, Art and Design, Citizenship and Technology. All the games are also sorted by grade levels (based on the UK educational system) or game types. The games are not necessarily hosted by the Primary Games Arena, but they link to only kids-appropriate games. The API let game developers feed scores from their games straight onto Primary Games Arena. I strongly recommend this site if your students need to learn while playing.
Archive for the Category ◊ Reading ◊
Many classics of literature are now available as free eBooks. Open Culture is compiling a list of great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry that are available as eBooks for free. The eBooks are not hosted by Open Culture, however, for each book, they are links to numerous eBooks providers including Google Mobile Books, Project Gutenberg, Stanza, Feedbooks and Kindle. Most book can therefore be read on your Kindle, PC, Kindle and more. It is a great way to save money at your school by getting the free eBooks rather than paying for the paper version.
If you are teaching poetry, “Poets.org” will be an amazing resource for you. It includes many popular poems that could be used in the classroom with the text and sometimes the audio version. There are also list of poems to Memorize, Perform, or Recite, poems to teach imagery, poems to teach forms and traditions, poems to teach the lyrics, poems to teach narrative, poems to teach irony and poems to teach Social, Historical & Cultural Context. The site also includes Curriculum Units & Lesson Plans, Essays on Teaching, Tips for Teaching and a Resource Center. If you want to discuss best practices with fellow teachers, there is also a discussion forum.
Grammar Gorillas is a fun activity for students to learn parts of speech. The student is presented with a sentence and two words are clickable. The student has to click one of the word bas on the part of speech. If the student clicks on the right word, a banana is given to the gorilla. The activity is available for beginners and for advance students.
“Free Rice” is a great website to help your students learn vocabulary and at the same time make a difference in the World to help end hunger. This is how it works. Students answer vocabulary questions and for each answer they get right, the sponsors of the website will donate 10 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program. Ten grains of rice may seem like a little amount, but since many students and many people are all playing at the same time, millions of people are getting fed through this program. Your students will learn new words and become better readers and writers while contributing to our society. So next time, instead of playing arcade games in the computer room at lunchtime, they can train their brain with “Free Rice”.
The Kids’ Lab present reading workouts that are designed for parents and teachers to work with students who need some practice with their reading skills.
They are designed to be done with an adult because the student can get confirmation when he or she is right and may be corrected when there is a misunderstanding. The reading workouts are available for these grade levels : kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade. The workouts put the emphasis on vocabulary development, phonics and phonemic awareness and reading comprehension. The workouts are not easy to find on the website at first. You need to use the “GO” menu in the top left corner of the screen.
