Freely Educate

Free Report & Articles from All About Spelling

Last fall, I was given the opportunity to join up with 99 other bloggers to review educational materials.  Most of the material I liked well enough to recommend, but most of it I did not keep for our little school.   There were only a few items that passed my high quality, non-twaddle, not-boring-at-all test. 

All About Spelling was one of our keepers. 

You see, we have very (!) phonetic spellers in our little school. The children would naturally think to spell "read" as "rede" before they think to spell it correctly, because they were taught the rule that "if a word ends in 'e,' the vowel says its name."   It's been frustrating to try to teach them how to spell correctly through the traditional approach of spelling lists.  Reading great books wasn't working, either.  I simply needed spelling to make sense!

I checked out a few other spelling programs for the review process, but only kept All About Spelling.  The program is super simple for the teacher to implement and interesting enough to keep the student engaged.  As a result of using the program, our students are spelling above average. 

Here's how it works:

The All About Spelling program brings together three pathways to learning - auditory (hearing), visual (seeing), and kinesthetic (touching).  This multisensory approach, combined with a built-in review system and reinforcement activities, ensures that students retain what they learn and understand how to apply it in practical situations.

 All About Spelling has many articles for educators on its main site (click on Articles at the top of the page).  There is also a free report...

And, this is worth mentioning, too...All About Spelling is  offering a one-time, never-again sale of 25% off their newest book, Level 5.  I need to get that one, too. We'd better hurry, because their sale ends next Saturday, July 18th. 

And, don't take my word for it!  If you have question or want more opinions, visit the ChatterBee:

p.s. I wrote about All About Spelling when we did a giveaway of their Levels 1-4 in January, here:

 

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Nick.com 3D Games

 

If you are looking for some great on-line games for your children to play, look no further than Nick.com.  With just a click of the mouse, children from preschool age to young teens will be able to locate one of more than 500 games to suit their needs.

 

Nick.com has some great 3D games featuring favorite cartoon characters like Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron and El Tigre.  Ride in Spongebob’s boat and try to win the Powerkart Grand Prix.  Imagine joining a live 3D game where you can fling slimeballs at other players.    Remember Hey Arnold, The Wild Thornberrys and Rocket Power?   Join their adventures and take a trip to the past.

 

In addition to the usual cartoon characters available on Nick.com, some new characters have been added to the action games genre.  The Penguins of Madagascar: Arctic Boot Camp Blitz is a great action game.    Join your favorite penguins as they slide down an obstacle course laden with good and bad surprises.  Go skating with Ginormica through town while dodging laser beams from the Giant Alien Robot in Monsters Vs Aliens:  Alien Trackdown.  Help Betsy in Pier 13 Throwdown and saturate dragonflies with soda pop as they try to ambush her.  Go flying with Iron Man as he tries to navigate through gates and collect rings in Iron Man: Makluan Ring Rampage.

 

Are you looking for something a little more traditional?  Check out the board games available to children of any age.  Play Nick.com Chess with another player on the same computer or you can e-mail your move to your friend.  Choose themes from Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron or Fairly Odd Parents to man your individual board.  In Jellyfish Shuffleboard, try to knock your opponents jellyfish off the board while scoring points with your own jellyfish. 

 

Overall, children will be able to find a game on Nick.com.  Whether you favor 3D games, actions games or board games, a fun time will be had by all.

Free Lessons for Teaching Engineering to K-12

TeachEngineering.org starts out with this statement:

Engineers have a hand in designing, creating or modifying nearly everything we touch, wear, eat, see and hear. Introducing engineering into the K-12 classroom K12 classroom connects science and math concepts to the everyday engineering that surrounds us.

Do you have a budding engineer?  Or do you have a good artist or an curious kid?  That's all you need to enjoy all that Teach Engineering has to offer!

The site is organized by categories:

• By subject area (subjects are organized into lesson plans and activities) 
• Curricular Units (longer, multi-week groupings of lessons)
• Lessons (these include associated activities)
• Activities (stand-alone activities or part of lessons or units)

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Free Elementary Grammar: Big Grammar Book from English Banana

It's sort of hard to take a website name like English Banana seriously, but after taking a look at their Big Grammar Book for elementary-age students, I think it's quite a find!

The following text is from the Big Grammar Book's introduction:

About the Big Grammar Book

"It's jam-packed from cover to cover with a great selection of photocopiable worksheets taken from the popular English Banana.com website. We wanted to provide teachers with a really useful book of no-nonsense grammar worksheets that they can dip into and use in class with students at ESOL Core Curriculum Entry Levels 1 & 2 [Elementary Level]. It is also ideal for students to work with at home since the answers are all printed at the back.

"The book is divided into four parts and is graded in difficulty, so that it begins with some basic stuff and builds up to more challenging grammar activities. It features a selection of Essential English worksheets which provide practice for crucial basic areas of knowledge for learners at Entry Level, like using numbers, writing the alphabet, spelling days and months correctly, and so on.

"We hope that you find this book a big help and full of material that you can use with your learners. A big thank-you must go to all the students who have already been trialling these worksheets in class. Their feedback has been invaluable to the development of this book..."

If you want to look at a few of the pages, to sample the book, or just want to download it slowly, go to this page for a list of available pages with links to download them (these download are .pdf files, straight from the English Banana site). 

If you'd like to download the entire kit and kaboodle in one click, go here to download the full grammar book (this download is through CNET's trustworthy and spyware/virus-scanned Download.com site).

Thank you, Jenn, for this high quality, 100% free, educational find!  Send your suggestion to me at loriseaborg@gmail.com

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Free Landmark Supreme Court Cases for Teachers

A parent in my area wrote in an e-newsletter:  "This was so good, I had to post it.  Please check it out if you have middle school age and up.  It is VERY teacher friendly with info broken down into appropriate reading levels, and tons of resources."  ~ Desiree" She was writing about Landmark Supreme Court Cases, a site full of famous (and infamous!) cases, legal terms and teacher-friendly information (such as how to teach about case studies).  A description from the Landmark Supreme Court Cases site includes: This site was developed to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark Supreme Court cases, helping students explore the key issues of each case. From the home page, you'll have access to a list of teacher-friendly areas of the site. Thanks, Desi, for this 100% free educational find! Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate Have a free educational resource to share? Want to be highlighted in a review and/or giveaway of your educational product?  Email me at loriseaborg@gmail.com

Happy Fourth of July, America!

I love this flag. I love this day. I love this land.

God bless America!

And you.

(photo taken -by me- over Mobile Bay, 2008)

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Have a free educational resource to share? Want to be highlighted in a review and/or giveaway of your educational product?  Email me at loriseaborg@gmail.com

U.S. National Park Service Free Summer Weekends

The U.S. National Park Service is offering free entry into over 100 parks that normally charge entrance fees.  The remaining free dates are:

• July 18-19, 2009
• August 15-16, 2009

Go to the U.S. National Park Service homepage for more information and to find participating parks. 

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a free educational resource to share? Want to be highlighted in a review and/or giveaway of your educational product?  Email me at loriseaborg@gmail.com