Age Range: 4-14 (Grades Pre-K-8, with parental supervision)
Scholastic offers free Thanksgiving lessons with Common Core-aligned lessons and activities.
The website says: “Introduce your class to the first harvest celebration, delve deeper into the relationships between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags, and take a closer look at the historical significance of the Pilgrims’ settlement.”
Choose from:
- The Mayflower
- Daily Life
- The Feast
- Historical Letters – with audio!
- Videos and photos
- Teaching Resources – Lesson plans by grade level and more!
Using the lesson plans, students will develop an understanding of historical events from different perspectives while practicing reading comprehension, creative writing, sequencing, and analytical and research skills.
The lesson plans are complete with reproducibles, a Thanksgiving book list, and recommended related materials to enhance and extend learning further.
National Geographic Kids – Lewis & Clark’s Expedition- Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 6-12, with parental supervision)
This site, provides an interactive journey that allows students to virtually participate in the Corps of Discovery’s trek across America.
Read first-hand accounts of the discoveries made by Lewis and Clark.Also, at ReadWriteThink.org you’ll find an engaging descriptive writing activity for students in grades 7-12 that is inspired by the Lewis & Clark expedition. This site also offers terrific links to other websites with multi-media resources and activities themed around Lewis & Clark and their Corps of Discovery.
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Storynory- Age Range: 3-12 (Grades Pre K-6, with parental supervision)
If you don’t know about this website – you should! Storynory.com offers a treasure trove of free audio stories for kids that include fairy tales, myths, original stories and more.
Every week a new audio story is published on the website (and has been since 2005). You can listen online or download the stories for free.The storytellers are entertaining and the content includes:
- Fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen
- Folktales and legends from around the world
- Beloved children’s tales such as the Just So stories by Rudyard Kipling
- Classics including A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and an entire audio book of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Original children’s stories created by the owners of the site. The founders of Storynory (a writer and BBC radio journalist) own an online media consulting company.
You can subscribe to their podcasts as well.Listening to audio stories develops language arts skills, improves attention, and sparks the imagination.
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Learner.org: Language Interactives- Age Range: 5-18 (Grades K-12, with parental supervision)
Learner.org offers free, interactive lessons including the elements of storytelling, how to use primary sources for historical facts when writing, and even an interactive spelling bee!
When you get to the site you’ll see the menu of amazing interactive for every subject that are archived on this site. Don’t get distracted! Look under “Language Arts” and “Literature” on the left “Disciplines” menu to find several choices including:
- Elements of a Story (Grades K-5) – Explore the different ingredients and elements that go into stories such as characters, plot, and background – and see how they fit together.
- Spelling Bee (Grades 1-10) – Take part in a virtual old-fashioned spelling bee! Listen to three stories and then spell words from each story. You can review the words, hear the audio, find definitions, and see the words used in context too!
Of course, once you’re through with the Language Arts and Literature Interactive, you’ll want to return to the main menu to explore Mathematics, Social Studies & History, Science, Foreign Language and Arts interactive too. Bookmark this site, it’s a keeper!
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Grammar Bytes- Age Range: 9-18 (Grades 4-12, with parental supervision)
Do you or your students think learning English grammar “bites”? Then, check out this website developed by a college English professor with attitude. She’s irreverent and funny and has devised a way to provide meaningful grammar lessons and interactive drills and quizzes that won’t bore your kids to death.
When you get to the site, you’ll see a menu that includes: Terms – Detailed definitions of grammar terminology including:
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Conjunctions
- Dangling Modifier
- Gerund
- Nouns
- Participle
- Semicolon
- Verbs
- And plenty more!
When you are finished here return to the home page menu to locate:
- Exercises – Interactive exercises (lessons) to help students learn correct grammar usage. Topics include comma splices, fragments, irregular verbs, misplaced modifiers, pronouns, subject-verb agreement, etc.
- Handouts – FREE handouts in PDF files that are companions to the exercises that students can do offline.
- Videos at YouTube – A short selection of fun, entertaining videos and animations that teach grammar.
Just click on any menu item title (in black) and a new page opens where you can access the free materials.You might want to click on the “About” section as well, where you’ll meet Professor Robin and discover her views on grammar instruction.
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Age Range: 7 and up (Grades 2 to adult; children with parental supervision)
This commercial website provides really entertaining videos, e-books, and interactive games designed to help kids learn the parts of speech and grammar. You have to pay to access all of the programs on the site BUT there is plenty of free content that your children will enjoy as well.
When you get to the site, you’ll see a video with explanations about the program, followed by a menu where you can explore samples of the books, videos, quizzes, and games that are included in the “Grammaropolis” program.The easiest way to explore the free grammar content is to use the horizontal menu buttons at the top of the home page. Place your cursor over each button to see what topic it covers including:
- Nouns – Learn about common nouns, proper nouns, concrete nouns, and abstract, compound, and collective nouns.
- Verbs – Discover action verbs along with transitive, intransitive, and linking verbs.
- Adjectives – Find out about possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, comparative, and superlative adjectives. Learn about articles, too!
- Adverbs – Explore adverbs, adverb clauses, and comparative and superlative adverbs.
- Pronouns – Learn about subjective and objective personal pronouns. Study possessive, interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite, intensive, reflexive, and relative pronouns.
- Conjunctions – Find out how conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. Learn about coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions.
- Learn how to identify and use prepositions and interjections, too!
Click on any topic and a new screen opens where you can take an animated mini-tutorial. Just click on the arrows to scroll to each new page. Scroll down below the invitation to “join today” to choose from free:
- Books
- Videos
- Quizzes
- Games
- Apps
This multimedia resource developed by a classroom teacher is appealing to a variety of learning styles. The free content here is a great way to introduce parts of speech or review them.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
