Group items tagged

The PBS site is free and has wonderful video and interactive activities for young and very young learners, that allow them to investigate the relationship between science and other aspects of real life. Very high quality and suggestive discussion questions, even if you don't use all the materials. Includes daily news stories and technology tips.

Mechanics and drama help students understand science and how life works. For young and very young learners, this lesson demonstrates how to engage learners physically in the subjects they are studying.

The YDC Educator's Kit is designed to help teachers and educators working in schools, youth clubs, community centres, and training institutes to generate and manage project-based learning activities with young people. --EHS

"In this intriguing TEDx talk, author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media Affects Your Young Child and Director of the New America Foundation's Early Education Initiative, Lisa Guernsey, discusses the research she has been involved with, as well as some the practical outcomes of her work exploring learning and screen media."

"Bookcase for Young Writers is a free web companion to our book Kids Have All the Write Stuff: Revised and Updated for a Digital Age to be published by the University of Massachusetts Press in Fall 2019. "This online bookcase features virtual shelves filled with literature, apps, and interactive digital tools to inspire children from preschool and kindergarten through the upper elementary grades to become confident, expressive, creative young writers. "It includes fiction, nonfiction and poetry as well as picture books, chapter books, and e-books. It has links to child-engaging information and topics related to the all writing ideas in the Bookcase. "This bookcase is intended as a starting point for children, teachers, families, librarians and other adults who want to read books that will inspire writing. T/h B. Maloy

"Hosted by Colin Hill, we attended the launch of the Bloomsbury Young Readers series, speaking to authors Jenny McLachlan and Michaela Morgan. " Click from this page to listen to this episode. Also has links to other podcsts and book readings for very young learners.

"Featuring practical advice and tips to inspire practitioners, carers and parents, this is a valuable resource for encouraging young children to talk about everyday skills in a context they can relate to. "The series uses simple, positive language and gorgeous full-colour illustrations to teach children aged 0-5 important personal and social skills. From making friends and sharing, to eating and tidying up, this series will help explore positive behaviour with children in a fun and friendly way." Though written for native speakers, the content and language level with pictures should make this series useful for very young NNS learners.

Games and puzzles for young learners (K-8th) to practice math. Includes a Teacher's Page to help inspire your class.

This blog page describes two cartoon software sites for students to use in creating animated stories. Good for writing and thinking processes. GoAnimate is for middle school- high school students (ages 11-17) and DomoAnimate is for young students.

Gives examples of very young learners using blogs as digital portfolios. Good discussion of formative and summative assessment as well.

A number of children's and young adult free books for your tablets. A good way to increase your school library with little expense. The online tool also lets your write, edit and publish books for free, and convert any doc to a book format.

"With the growing popularity of internet access to mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, monitoring internet activity isn't so easy as plopping the computer in the living room and keeping a watchful constant eye over young shoulders. Now, the internet is mobile. It's small enough to fit in a pocket and that makes parental monitoring an even bigger challenge. "Fortunately, the tech world has heard the rally cries of concerned parents and a number of kid-safe browsers are available to allow your child internet access in a safe manner. By no means is everything on the internet dirty, filthy, vulgar or dangerous. Much of the content on the web is educational, informative, fun and smart. With these kid safe browsers, you'll be able to help keep your kids on the right side of the cyber tracks."

"I was recently in a third grade classroom and was struck by the presence of rules that were posted for how to have a conversation. The poster said, "Each person must contribute to the discussion but take turns talking. Ask each other, 'Would you like to add to my idea?' or 'Can you tell us what you are thinking?' Ask questions so that you understand each other's ideas. Say, 'Can you tell me more about that?' or 'Can you say that in another way?'" "Having visited many middle and high schools, I think these same rules could -- and probably should -- be posted there as well. " How important the rules of conversation are! We all too often expect our students to "get into groups and discuss," but how often are these productive conversations? These tips/strategies are well worth practicing at the beginning of every year/semester, and not just with young learners. These tips are also a nice practice for EFL/ESL students as they prepare to speak with native speakers.

A blog for the young and young at heart (middle-highschool). This blog-makr really focuses on the visual, so your students can get very creative. Not for the visually impaired--or the impatient. It can take a while to load as an embedded widget. But it is fun to use their graphics, and you can upload your own photos and videos. Good for project advertisements.

Some of the rules laid down here would be good for any young learners--how to keep the social Web from destroying young lives.

R. Byrnes has found some good sites for young learners, including PBS Kids and a Council of Europe game. Topics include cyberbullying as well as online safety.

This is a site for young learners/young adult learners who might be doing e-pals -- or for the teacher who wants to use conversation in the classroom, perhaps as a good warm-up activity while students are arriving and settling down to their class work.

This is a clever illustration of how several writers can collaborate in Google Docs/Driver to create. Your young learners will catch on fast.

An interview, but describes an interesting global project, http://gng.org/, which uses a news feed and Twitter to connect young people around the world.

This looks like a cute app for the very young. You upload pictures and arrange them in a set, create one or more questions for each, which you record. The user taps to hear the questions and taps a place on the picture to answer it. TinyTap also has a market with free and purchaseable games already made. Lots of potential for ESL vocabulary practice, since once you get by the interface it doesn't look childish at all.