Speedy Speller!!!!

Ask any elementary student about their favorite spelling game and in any grade, you'll hear about Speedy Speller!!!! Play it here! NOW!


Thanks VSC: Want lists by great?  HERE!



1st Grade Word Lists
2nd Grade Word Lists
3rd Grade Word Lists
4th Grade Word Lists
5th Grade Word Lists
6th Grade Word Lists

Wonderopolis and Family Literacy

I've just been talking to John R at Family Literacy - NCEL - in Louisville Kentucky about Wonderopolis and WonderoCity. Community manager is John M. Impressive board.. Here's one of their widgets:


https://wonderopolis.org/widget/blogger
- doesn't activate...
It's a very impressive collection of educational materials. Their mission is to provide support for family literacy.  They have:

Wonders of the Day -
Wonderground - exchange on what to do with it
Camp Wonderopolis - sometimes overlaps with Wonders of the Day
Wonderwall

So much very cool and well done educational materials.
https://wonderopolis.org/
Interactive Wonder Jar
Family Literacy - NCFL!

Hurricane Education

Here's my favorite, the hurricane song.

The Hurricane Song

 Here's a new one that I just discovered. How much does a hurricane weigh? Sound stupid but it's amazing. It first deals with the question of how much does a typical fluffy cloud weight (Spoiler alert...tons!)


 


This little film has some good content but the dramatic premise is laughable.

Hi Timmy. Your house is gone. I'll teach you some science about hurrricanes....

It does have a few dramatic music sequences which make up for the cheesy premise. Also, it's got a great British  voice over.




BTW. I'm looking at hurricane info since I'm an evacuee from IRMA in Ft Lauderdale.
Here is the info on evacuation zones in Ft Lauderdale.

Flex tape - here's the ad from TV about this amazing tape. If I'd had time, I wanted to seal up my sliding doors at the seam and see if it would actually stop the house from flooding. Anyone know if it would?  I asked them in the comments of their youtube video, I wonder if they'll answer...

 https://www.flexsealproducts.com/product/flextape_giant/

Have you ever wondered?

Here is a stream of more than just fun facts, these are areas of mystery demystified for us. Enjoy! All thanks to Family Literacy Center in Louisville and Wonderopolis. 

First Palm You'll See Driving South on I95?

Here is a valuable update on the first palm trees seen from driving south on the I95 highway. Sorry, still no pictures or a Google address ID. I might get onto Google Earth and try and figure it out!

Collections and Information

I have some other sites that I maintain.

Most importantly, I have a world class collection of joker playing cards. Examples  of jokers.

There are specific sections like a collection of musicians who are jokers.  There's also a collection of clown jokers. And so on.

But wait, there's more. I also have a blog with info, a blorum, in which I present much info including info such as SEO Circa August 2017!  There I make the bold statement that search engine position is a function of:

1.  Quality and quantity and relevance of incoming links from websites  50% of the battle. 
2.  Quality and quantity of social media links such as Twitter and LinkedIn, perhaps Pinterest: 25% of the battle.  
3. Engagement: Another 25%.

I'm also a big collector of vintage educational technology, the old techie for kids and their fun learning. Key articles there that you will want to check out:

Remember?

• Old Telephones
• Carbon Paper
• Film strips
• Typewriters
• Little Golden Books
• Overhead projectors
• Record Players
• Mimeograph Machines

The site is about old technology for education. In the VocabularySpellingCity office, we collect vintage educational technology and enjoy viewing previous "revolutions" in edtech. Visitors get to visit the museum. Have retired film strips, educational records, or whatever? We might give them a home. Did you use these technologies, were they revolutionary? Comment on the site or tweet to me: @VSpellCityMayor PS. I'm looking for a classic old teacher gradebook, have one?

Language Arts in Elementary Schools

I am familiar with the VocabularySpellingCity adoption by schools, districts, teachers, and parents across the country. It's been wildly popular! 👱

It started with the automated spelling test.  What a gas! Kids were finally empowered to really test themselves and not have to ask for help to practice their words. And, the test itself and all the practice activities were gamified so the kids stopped complaining about practicing their spelling words and started learning them.  

Teachers were like Oh WOW, I don't have to grade and record a spelling test this week? Or ever again.  Suddenly, after years of fighting technology, somebody has actually introduced some technology that simplified their life and saved them class time and effort. How much do teachers LOVE VocabularySpellingCity? So Much.  Other activities have come along which have also made a huge difference.

For nstance, the site introduced tens of thousands of word lists ready-to-use on almost any topic. Want to have a vocabulary test on top European countries?  Third grade geometry words?  1st Grade Compound Words?  8th grade level analogies and metaphors.  The site has a veritable Swiss Army knife of possibilities.  Want help finding the right materials for your grade? Start with the info on your grade level. Here:

Kindergarten Word Lists;
1st Grade Word Lists
2nd Grade Word Lists
3rd Grade Word Lists
4th Grade Word Lists
5th Grade Word Lists
6th Grade Word Lists

Lastly, the site has a serious number of great learning games. I won't list them here but still, fantastic materials. Enjoy! It's only $2.25 per student per year for schools!

Phonics Prereading skills

Homeschool moms: pay attention to the sequence of learning to read. While there is much to debate and which doesn't relaly matter, afew things do.

What may or may not matter. Letter names. Plenty of kids have learned to read without knowing the names of all the letters. I fyou think about it, knowing what the name of the B or the D is does not help you to read at all. It arguably gets in the way since its name is a useless fact. Of, you could argue that knowing the name makes it easier to deal with letters.  Many countries such as England and France do NOT teach letter names until later in elementary school after the kids have learned to read. They, by the way, have less problems teaching kids to read that the Good Old USA!

What does matter. Phonological skills. The kids who do not learn to discriminate between p and b, or m and n, and so on, have a very difficult time with both verbal and reading skills.   From early on, parents should play games and find software that helps kids build these skills. Examples:

Sound It Out - A great Phonological Skill Building game. Her'es a detailed description of how these phonological prereading skills are developed by it.  And here's a link to a collection of prereading phonics-skill building games.



Why are these phonological skills important? 

Building early literacy skills begins with phonological awareness, the key element in learning phonics. Once they can begin to understand phonics, the system of sound and letter correspondence, beginning readers can accurately decode words and writers can spell them. Word recognition also includes the automaticity of word meaning. Developing good spelling and vocabulary skills is essential for effective written communication as well. Vocabulary development also promotes fluency by building background knowledge and concepts necessary for reading comprehension. Developing these skills over time achieves the ultimate goal of reading and writing fluency.

For English Language Learners, Sound It Out is exceptionally useful.  As background, we all know that one of the challenges for ELL students is mastering the phonological skills of distinguishing the sounds (both for hearing and for speaking) that exist in English but not in their original languages. For instance, native Spanish speakers need to learn to distinguish the English /v/ from the /b/ sound.  Other English sounds that are difficult for native Spanish speakers include the /l/ sound, the short /i/, and the /ch/ sound. But with Sound It Out, these tough sounds can be listened to and practiced, sound by sound, giving them the power to pursue proficiency.

Education Is Fun

As Marshall McCluhan reportedly said, "If you don't think entertainment can be educational, you don't know the first thing about either one."

We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us. 

Here some images that I'm going to post temporarily as part of a tech test project. Stay tuned. Plus, I need to look up Marshalls name....

Education and Games

An Opportunity for Game Developers to Pool Sales and Marketing Efforts

I received this email last week and I assume it's a marketing come-on in which I pay fees for marketing under the auspices or guise of a "collaborative." Or maybe it is some brave sole trying to create a new channel and visibility for educational games. Maybe I'll check it out. Of course, a lot of our educational marketing is for Susan's homeschoolers.

John,

You probably know that one of my passions has been finding a way to increase the use of game-based learning in schools. And you probably also know that the sales channel has been the single greatest challenge in the education market.

I am now creating a sales and marketing collaborative so that education game companies can pool their sales and marketing resources, and have a better chance of selling into schools.

If you know of games companies that might be interested, or if you want to find out more, please let me know. I'll be at FETC next week, so if you're there, we can find a time to talk.

Thank you, and hope you have a great 2017,


MitchWeisburgh
Academic Business Advisors