Week of Giveaways: Day 2

For Day 2 of our giveaways, we are sharing both Back to School Feud Powerpoint Games.

Just like the classic game show, Family Feud, these classroom powerpoints are sure to bring the fun and competition into your class!!  They make exciting ice breaker while also reviewing some classroom expectations.

Includes all the bells and whistles of the original game, including:
- theme song
- bells for correct answers
- buzzers/disappointed audience for incorrect guesses
- colorful clipart
- EDITABLE, so you can add/edit questions and answers to suit your needs

The powerpoint also flows perfectly, allowing you to move from round to round with the click of the mouse, and by clicking the gameshow host you jump back to the board to update scores! 

Each game includes 3 Rounds and 5 Fast Money questions, along with directions and key.
Examples:
~ "Name a common classroom rule."
~ "Name a way your teacher can tell you are not paying attention."
~ "Name a reason a student might raise their hand in class."

To enter:
1) like our facebook page
2) share the above photo from our facebook wall
3) comment on the photo

*Contest ends tonight at 11:59pm CT.

Online Games for Middle School Language Arts

I love having student computers in my classroom, but because there are only two, I have been at a loss with how to let students use them so that they are relevant for 8th grade English.  Anytime a student finished early the only website they knew to go to was coolmath.com, and while I am sure there are great math games, it just didn't feel appropriate for them to play during my class. 

I found tons of elementary-oriented website for helping with reading, spelling, and phonics, but secondary games are hard to come by...so I searched harder.

I have spent some of my free time  (hah!) during the past few weeks looking for games that are fun to play, but also address objectives my students need to know and may also struggle with.  I added my "finds" to my classroom website for students to access and thought some of you may want to use them as well without having to do the legwork. ;)

So, here they are...  If you know of more please share with us in the comments!





 

Freerice.com:
For each answer you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, and grades.

It's Greek to Me Game:
Identify definitions by using clues found in words' roots while playing in the Olympics.

 

 

Professor Garfield Reading Ring:
Wrestle your opponent by answering comic strip questions.

 

 

Professor Garfield Learning Lab:
Watch videos and play games from Garfield.

 

Superthinkers:
Interactive mysteries teach problem solving

 

Rooting Out Word:
Help Remainder the Dog gather enough mushrooms to sell at the market by uncovering the roots of words.

 

 

Plural Girls:
Twin sisters Pearl and Flora lost their friends in the bubble machine. Help them get their friends out by choosing the correct plural form of the given word.

 

 

Word Confusion:
Help Regan the Vegan make fresh salad. Choose the correct word to complete each sentence.

 

 

Grammar Gorillas:
Our friends, the Grammar Gorillas, need help identifying parts of speech. If you click on the right word in the sentence, our friends get a banana. And you know, a gorilla with a banana is a gorilla with appeal.

 

Spell Check:
Can you check the misspelled word??

 

 

~Mrs. Scott

You Danger

I have recently discovered Scholastic Scope Magazine and LOVE using it to teach lessons in my language arts class!  While you are encouraged to purchase subscriptions for each student, Scholastic's website allows you to view issues and project the pdf in class.  (If your school has EBSCO access, you can also find printable versions there)  As an added bonus, they provide curriculum that accompanies each article that address junior high TEKS.

I recently used the above article for a persuasive writing lesson in my class that the students loved.  The article is about how kids risk their lives to video tape crazy stunts to post on youtube and poses a question about youtube's responsibility.

I started the lesson with a video clip from youtube that the kids found hilarious = the perfect hook:



Then we read the article as a class.  At the end of the article students are asked to choose a side on whether youtube should ban stunt videos and support their opinions with textual evidence.

 

As an extension Scholastic provides a step-by-step guide that walks students through writing an argument essay.  I didn't use these, but there is also a transition guide and an argument essay checklist.

The rest of the magazine is fabulous as well, so you will probably see more blogs in the future about other cool stuff I find in there.

~Mrs. Scott



Classroom Management: ClassDojo

I stumbled upon this fabulous website last week that helps with classroom management. It is completely free, and is perfect for tracking student behavior, especially those in special education/behavior program.  Their adorable video explains it better than I can.

Wasn't sure if it would be too babyish for my 8th graders, but have been reminded yet again how much junior high students appreciate this kind of stuff! They are totally into seeing how they are doing throughout class and adjust their actions accordingly, and many have gone home to modify their monster. I am planning to do some type of reward system each week for students with the highest number of points, but haven't quite decided the logistics.
~Mrs. Scott

Video Maker

I am so excited to be the Student Council sponsor at my new campus!  We have televised morning announcements, giving me the chance to advertise for the club in a new way: through video!  I had no idea how I was going to create an ad, and spent hours on youtube trying to steal someone elses work without any luck.

Fortunately, I stumbled upon Animoto, a FREE video creating site.  And when I say it was simple, I am not kidding.  I made two 30 second videos in about twenty minutes.  They already have slideshow templates to choose from and a huge library with music.  You just type in what you want it to say and it does the work! 

I don't think I will win any advertising awards, but they turned out pretty darn good:







I love this site so much, I am going to have to find ways to add it to my lessons, either by the students creating something or during instruction!

~Mrs. Scott

Youtube Converter

I recently discovered that my new campus has youtube blocked during school hours. I show videos with my lessons almost every day and sometimes teachertube just doesn't have what I need.

After searching the internet for hours yesterday to figure out how to download videos (youtube doesn't allow you to), I stumbled upon a website that will convert youtube clips to mp4's that you can save to your computer to show later. All you do is paste the url and hit convert! No account registration or cost!

Click here for the link

Character Movie Clips

We are teaching Cornell Notes at school this week and a coworker shared her plans for modeling the structure of the notes using movie clips on a site I'd never heard of. WingClips is an amazing (and free!) website with movie clips that "illustrate and inspire." There are hundreds of categories/themes on their page with snippets from movies that demonstrate the characteristic listed. The movies are current, relevant, and SAFE!

One of the vocabulary words my students learned today was camaraderie, and I was able to teach it showing clips from Forrest Gump and Coach Carter:



If the website is blocked at your campus, they also have a downloading feature, so you can save the clip at home to show in class. And as you can see there is also the capability to embed the video (great for powerpoints)!

~Mrs. Scott

Valentine Themed Ideas

Here are some pretty awesome websites for your class to visit during the chaos that accompanies this sweet holiday.

Word Hearts - This site creates a heart-shaped word cloud. Would be great to brainstorm a list of things kids love or adjectives that mean love.
Valentine Word Drop - players must unscramble the words before they hit the bottom of the screen.


Heart Sudoku
My Money Valentine - Game is played like the online lemonade stand, but with an amorous twist

Starfall Connecting Words - elementary students can learn about connecting words while creating their own Valentines

Heart Writing - Don't let the foreign language throw you off when you enter the site. Simply type a paragraph into the box and choose "layout text" to create your own heart.
Counting Candy Hearts - reinforces number corelation in lower elementary