Activity #6 Study Tools

Initially I was thinking this activity was not very applicable to kindergarten because there are so many emergent readers and we don't typically use flashcards with words very much. BUT... I was wrong!! Quizlet is really cool: you create "sets" of flashcards. I decided to make short vowel word sets. Once you create the sets, there are several things/"games" you can do with the sets. I am really excited about the "Speller" game. A voice speaks the word, and students try to spell the word. (We do this in class all the time!) I say a word, or our Jolly Phonics for the whiteboard program does and the kids write out the sounds they hear. The additional cool thing with Quizlet is that you can add graphics too! Very kindergarten appropriate! With this, I could have various levels of lists for individual or small group practice. I think kids could practice at home too, via a blog post with this embedded. What I really need next, is to figure out how to get some devices for kids to use... iPads, laptops, chromebooks, etc. And figure out how to efficiently load up this program on the devices so that 5 or 6 kids could use them during Daily 5 time. Here's a set of short a flash cards... Spicynodes: I had several technical difficulties for the 2nd study tool... I wanted to make a tagxedo. Couldn't load the operating system on my laptop or on my Chromebook, thus couldn't create anything. Moved on to Spicynode. I am posting the start of my project. But hit a wall with this too. I had added several more nodes to the "Mrs. Sabby" branch, but couldn't save them. Tried many times on my laptop, even moved to the Chromebook and had the same saving issue. So.... decided to post what I had so far. I want to keep moving forward. I like Spicynode, but am not sure about creating a mind-map with the whole class. The format for entering text is easy, but might be overwhelming/confusing for emergent readers and writers... I have to think more on this. And I like to involve the kids in generating the ideas for a mind map- so I probably wouldn't make one to just put up for them. Also- no option for graphics with this one (Popplet would be better) But I did think I could use this with parents just as a fun option for organizing and delivering info. I created a mind-map with topics I cover at our fall parent meeting. I could post this prior to the meeting and parents could get an idea of what I will talk about. Also, people who can't/don't come could get an overview from this.