Language Arts Resources

Grammar 
Sheppard Software has some wonderful grammar games.  

In this game you choose a noun, adjective, and verb
 to create your own character for the stage! 







Grammaropolis is a site with some great free grammar tools for teachers.  
The site includes a video section that has a video titled "A Pronoun Takes the Place of a Noun" and one titled "An Adverb Modifies an Adjective" which are both very cute.  It also includes a book section (with more books coming soon) as well as a grammar song section

It also has a great Word Sort game for students to play.  
 



Grammar Ninja is a really fun way to practice grammar with your students. It's a simple game that has students identify various parts of speech. There are three levels to choose from: Beginner Ninja, Skilled Ninja, and Master Ninja. One of my favorite things about this site is that it includes an on screen help button for those that need some assistance. This would be a great whole class or individual activity.


It is a great game to use for a whole class grammar game.  Words fall from the sky and students must sort them into the correct category as quickly as possible.  The categories get more difficult and varied as the level increases.  Level 1 sorts by nouns, adjectives, and linking verbs, Level 2 with action verb, adverbs, and conjunctions, and Level 3 sorts by preposition, pronoun, noun and interjection. This game would be great to use on your SmartBoard as a whole class activity and also as an individual center station.  

Punctuation
Here are some great sites for students to practice punctuation! 

















Punctuation Printables from Sparklebox



Sentence Building
Puzzle Shapes- students drag the puzzle pieces to make a sentence.

Who Am I?- students fill in the blank to complete the sentences. This has an audio button where the sentences 
can be read to them for an independent activity.

Writing Runway- the teacher types in a sentence and the words are them mixed up. The student's must arrange the words correctly on the runway to complete the sentence. 


The Patchworker- Arrange the words in the correct order across the bottom of the screen to make a proper sentence and reveal the patchwork picture. 


Writing & Punctuating Sentences

The set of games on the BBC website called Penguins on Ice are perfect for using when students are learning how to write, punctuate, and embellish sentences. 


How to Play:
First choose which game you would like to play and click on it. Make a sentence : Place the penguins in the correct order on the podiums to make the sentence. Which mark? : Drag the penguin with the correct punctuation mark to the empty podium. Make it interesting : Drag the penguin with the correct descriptive word to the empty podium. Click on the HELP penguin if you get stuck. At the end of each game, you can print out your sentences or play again.

Walls of Words is another fabulous site for practicing sentence building with students. 
You can choose between a 5 word or 7 word sentence.   
You are then given a set of words and your job is to unscramble the words to make a complete sentence and add the correct punctuation before the timer runs out. 
If your sentence is correct the builders will come out and 
help you finish the wall and you'll get a new set of bricks. 


Extreme Sentence Surgeon is another fun game from MrNussbaum.com.  



Spelling
Popcorn Words is a great game from Fun 4 the Brain that gives students practice spelling dozens of the most common site words.  


Students must listen carefully to what the monkeys want and then click on the correct box to serve each of them what they ordered.  Students are to try to figure out the word by allowing it to "pop" into their head.  Several of the words are rule breakers so you can't sound them out.  



Grilled Cheese Please is a fun spelling game that your kids will love! 

To play students must use their spelling and typing skills to help their food character turn back into a boy or girl by winning a swim meet in a ketchup pool. Each word you spell incorrectly will slow you down.  
Students can choose between a french fry, hot dog, 
chicken drumstick, hamburger or pizza slice! 
What a fun game! 


Spell a Picture from Kerpoof is another great spelling activity. In this activity students can choose a background for their picture and use the letters at the bottom of the screen to practice spelling words. The neat thing about this game, and what sets it apart from other spelling games is that as they spell, pictures pop up on the screen that begin with those letters. As they continue spelling, the game narrows the pictures down to the one word that a student has spelled- with new pics appearing and disappearing.  

In the example below I started to type FO and here is what showed up on the screen. 
As I continue selecting letters, add OTB and A, the pictures changed.. 
Finally I finished the word and my answer was selected. 

What a fun way to practice spelling!



Spin & Spell is a fun way for students to practice spelling and can be played either individually or with others. 
To play you simply click on the picture you want to spell. Dial the first letter of the wheel by clicking on it with your mouse. The wheel will spin and your letter will appear at the bottom. Dial the rest of the letters and click submit when you are done. The categories included are:
In and Around the Home, What We Wear, What We Eat,
How We Get There, and The Animal Kingdom.



Professor Melonhead is a great site for students to use to practice letter recognition skills and spelling skills.
There are 10 different activities to choose from on the site that work fabulously with your SmartBoard. 


Spelling can be a pretty monotonous task week after week. Why not try some fun online spelling bees for a change?

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a musical comedy.

On the website for this show there is a fun spelling bee game students can play! First you choose a speller from one of the characters in the comedy.
You are then told a word to spell with options to hear the word again, hear the definition, or hear the word used in a sentence.


This site from the Bee Movie has a spelling game that allows
 students to help Barry complete each phrase. 


Are you the Best Speller? is a fun game that allows you to choose a speller,
select a grade level, and practice spelling!
This game has options for repeating the word, hearing it used in a sentence, hearing a definition, and hearing a synonym. 


The Visual Thesaurus has a Spelling Bee game that is lots of fun!


Practicing spelling words can get very boring sometimes. 
Here are some fun ways to have your students practice their spelling words:

Playdo Graffiti is a fun site that gives you a blank wall and a spray paint can.  You can customize the color of paint and the strength and size of your spray to create your very own graffiti!  It even has a sound effect that sounds like you are spraying paint when drawing!


Dotty Dots is a fun site that allows you to type a word or phrase made out of Google colored dots.  Once you create your message by typing it in the box at the top of the page, it is turned into interactive connected dots.


Spell with Flickrr is  super simple- just type in the words you'd like and it's searches through Flickr's pictures to find letters for you.  If you don't like one of the letters, just click on it to get a different one.  Each of the letters must be saved individually by right clicking or you must take a screen shot of your word. 


GeoGreeting is a fun letter site.  On this site you simply type in a word and it finds buildings that when photographed from above, look like letters.  Such a neat idea! 


IconScrabble is a letter site that uses common icons for letters. You just type in your word and icons with those letters pop up! 


Reading
Into the Book has to be one of the very BEST, comprehensive Reading websites I have ever seen. 

It is a reading comprehension resource for K-4 students and teachers created by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and a team of experienced educators. 

The site focuses on eight research-based strategies: 
  • Using Prior Knowledge
  • Making Connections
  •  Questioning
  • Visualizing
  • Inferring
  • Summarizing
  •  Evaluating and Synthesizing
There are two different areas to the website- 
the Student area and the Teacher area. 

The Student area is called Into the Book and has
 online interactive activities as well as engaging 15-minute video programs for each of the 8 strategies.

The interactives are fabulous- full of great graphics and sounds and lots of interaction and prompts for students.

The Teacher area is called Behind the Lesson. 
Behind the Lesson provides information and teaching resources for each strategy for teachers. 

Teachers can watch the 10-minute professional development videos and explore the Web site for lesson plans, video and audio clips, downloads of printable posters, songs for each strategy and so much more.  

Literactive has some great Guided Reading Stories 
for early readers. 

Each guided reader is fully animated to engage your child's attention. A complete phonemic and syllabic breakdown of every word in the stories is provided enabling each child to decode the written text working alone or in small classroom groups.

There are even Spanish versions of each story available here .



StarFall has some great books
Learn to Read activities and books for beginning readers

and some It's Fun to Read activities
 for more advanced readers.





TESiboard is full of Literacy and Phonics activities for all ages as well as a wide variety of activities in various subjects. 



Writing
This Story Creator is a fabulous activity from Compass Learning that is perfect for Grade 1-2 to use when practicing to become good writers. 

Story Creator features interactive learning environments where students learn to read, write, and express their thoughts. Children create their own unique stories with characters, scenery, and vocabulary words of their choosing. It allows students to make lots of choices (color, background, characters, etc) and also has a tutorial that will walk them through exactly how to create their story. There are even words to choose from that can be clicked on and heard aloud. 



ClassTools.net has some fabulous free resources for teachers! One of my favorite is a virtual book that would be great for using after students write a story. Here's how it works: Just click the Add Text button to paste in your text.

Then, simply turn the pages by clicking on them. 
It's a simple and effective way of breaking up a long piece of prose to make it easier to analyze and more fun to read! 
Here is an example:



The Delaware Art Museum has provided a great website dedicated to storytelling.   On this site, students can picture a story, experience a story, or tell a story. 

 The Picture a Story  provides a great tool for telling a digital story.   First, students choose a genre of story that they want to tell choosing from adventure, romance, fantasy, comedy, fairy tale, drama, mystery, western, or horror.  Next they choose a famous painting background for their story.  Then students add characters (who are also from famous works of art), props, and then tell the story. 
In the tell the story section, students type out the story.  If they would like to, students can even record the story in their own voice.  When students have completed their story, it can be shared via email. What a great way of bringing together art and storytelling! 
.


iBoard is a site full of fabulous resources for teachers and Start with a Character and Start with a Setting are great ones to use for starting story writing.  

When students are struggling for a main character to write about, Start with a Character can help to give them a little inspiration.  Students can choose a face, an expression, and an outfit for their character.  Outfits include: cowboy, caveman, pajamas, astronaut, camper, underwater diver, beach boy, and knight.  For students struggling with spelling, you can also add a label to any item on the screen.  
When students are struggling for a setting for their story, Start with a Setting can help them to choose one.  There are nine settings including: movie set, beach, space, castle, forest, ranch, underwater, mountain, and plains. Once you choose your setting, you can choose many different items and characters for your setting.  



The Story Starter Jr. is a fabulous and simple site created by Joel Heffner.  The name tells  exactly what the site is- it's a place to get help starting a story.  


You simply click a button and it gives you the beginning sentence of a story. If you don't like that story starter, just click the button again to get a new one! There is also an original Story Starter site for older kids and adults.  What a great way to get kids who are stuck started writing! 





Storybird  is an absolutely amazing interactive site. Storybird is a very user-friendly way of combining pictures or drawings and text to tell a story, and then share that story with other people.

You choose images from a huge bank of ready-drawn pictures which also help to provide inspiration for story ideas. The site is very easy to navigate and writing a story is a snap. To write a story you have to create an account but it's super easy and it's free!

One of the greatest things about Storybird is that you can have several students all work on the same story together. Once you are done creating a story, you can either send it to others or embed it into a blog or website. There is a huge library of stories created by others that you can read to get inspiration for your own story. 



Phonics and Reading Games

Literactive is a wonderful site full of great games for kids- especially some great phonics/early reading games.  

Here are a few of my favorites:


This is a fun  fish bowl sorting game aimed at helping students who struggle with p, b, and d confusion.
Students sort the lettered fish into the correct bowls after hearing the sound spoken aloud. 


Nine Squares is an activity where students have a choice of nine pictures. They need to identify which one begins with the sound given. They can even roll the arrow over the picture to hear the beginning letter sound. Once all nine are identified, a picture is revealed. 

The Painting Game is a game where children match pictures with sounds. It focuses on initial sounds. Students listen to the word and chooses the word that begins with the same sound.  They can even roll the arrow over the picture to hear the beginning letter sound. 

Rubber Ducky is a matching game where students must match the sound to the letter on the rubber duck.  

Each of these games has oral directions that can be used or turned off. These games would be great as either a center or station activity or as a whole class activity 
on the SmartBoard.



Check out all the Literactive games here.