My StoryMaker

This is a great site to help kids create a story!
My StoryMaker lets you control characters and objects - and creates sentences for you! Once you are done with your story, you can print it out. You cannot go back and edit a story once you have ended it but, if you click "yes" when asked to share it with others, you can print it out again by entering the magic number it gives you in the box on the right. Stories are saved for one month...but you can save them as a PDF to keep forever.


I saw this site from a tweet from @Mray29. It was showcased at #TCEA.
I think this site has great potential for uses in elementary classrooms. Students select the scenery, characters, objects, and actions the characters do in their story. StoryMaker creates sentences for you or you can delete those and enter your own creations. It is VERY user friendly!
Check it out when you have time! If you have great ideas on how to use this with students, please comment below to share those ideas with others!

Spelling and Vocabulary Site

This FREE site by Houghton Mifflin is a great one even if you use another resource for Spelling and Vocabulary. Students can choose their grade level ranging from 1st-6th grades. There are various activities for students to participate in to review spelling, proof-reading, and vocabulary.

The activities use Flash and allow students to play online. Activities include a crossword game, word find, word builder, word sort, proofreading, web tales, and more.

Students choose their grade level then select a unit for most activities. There are a ton to choose from so your students can visit this site often and still have new information to study and review!

I would add this bookmark to your site or student laptops/computers and also send it home to inform parents of a great site to help their child review spelling and vocabulary. Your students will have fun and won't even realize how much they are learning! :)

The Reform Symposium

If you have time this weekend (July 30-Aug. 1), I recommend checking out The Reform Symposium.  This online conference will showcase innovation in education.  From their site: The Reform Symposium is a free online conference for educators, administrators, parents and students. This year the conference is focused on innovative practices in education and what role these practices can play in educational reform.
Check it out! If you miss something, recordings of the presentations will be archived at the presenter's pages.
The twitter hashtag for this conference is #rscon10 if you want to follow it on twitter.