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Our Global Experience....

Yesterday, our wonderful Fine Arts Team and our K-2 student's put on an extremely entertaining and education production entitled "Here Comes the Sun: A Solstice Winter Celebration" (one of the ustreams is below).

As I started to last year, the performances are uStreamed so that our working parents, at home grandparents, aunts, uncles, near and far can watch and enjoy. A chat was enabled so that distant relatives could send messages to the kids. We would pass them along.

This year, unfortunately, some unfriendly chatters invaded our space. The reality of the open stream, I know. Last year, no trouble at all. But this year, both in my building and our 3-5 building, we had spoilers. The parents were very understanding, the kids never "saw" the chat, and the users were kicked out almost right away. Next year we will be setting up a chat password and sending that home with the streaming announcement.

My point being is that with this great global community we now can experience, we will also find that there are some ignorant individuals out there trying to ruin it for us. Although we will have to put the password on, it still feels good that we can share this type of event with our distant families.

Our ustream address is http://www.ustream.tv/channel/here-comes-the-sun
if you would like to see the show! (no chat, though!)

Here Comes the Sun

Free Videos by Ustream.TV

RLA sites

Foniks
http://www.foniks.org/
This site allows students to hear pronunciation for letter combinations, the alphabet... It also includes notes for rules that challenge readers.

Reading Planet
http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/
You can write stories, play word games, visit links on Eric Carle... Take a peek...

Document Camera uses in the classroom

Thanks C & R for sharing this!

Gotta love Scholastic

A quick writing activity that generates a creative story. Pick the format:
notebook, newspaper, or postcard. Print your story at the end!
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/storystarters/storystarter1.htm

Reading / Language Arts Links

Here are some Reading/Language Arts links...

Students have a love for writing or are they struggling with putting thoughts down on paper? Writing Fun uses text organizers to assist with the writing process
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jeather/writingfun/writingfun.html

The online spelling program, Spelling City makes practicing for spelling tests fun: any spelling word or spelling list can be entered into the box to test spelling skills through activities, games, and quizes. Word lists can be saved, too.
http://www.spellingcity.com/

On Starfall, the ABC’s, fun to read activities, plays, non-fiction stories, and comics can be utilized to teach and entertain the K-5 reader.
http://www.starfall.com/

Provided by TeacherVision, find many online reading and language arts interactive support games listed by grade level. Choose ones that best suit your needs and bookmark to learn and have fun!
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/reading-and-language-arts/games/5831.html

Scholastic’s Wheel of Language Arts is quite the favorite! Choose the K-2 or 3-5 tab for Scholastic recommended interactive sites. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/clf/index.htm