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Easing the transition to postsecondary for students with disabilities |
Taking flightPersonal educational press www.educationalpress.org
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make your own games |
Make your own flash cards, game boards, quizzes, tracing sheets, word search and word scrambles. Choose from scores of writing or reading categories to create printable sheets.
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wonderfully designed |
This site is wonderfully designed, with lots of kid-friendly colours and images. There are separate sections with booklists for older and younger kids. A Homework Help section, organized by topic, makes it easy to locate information for a class project. The Fun and Games section provides links to all kinds of interactive literature sites.
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searchable database |
Hosted by the University of Calgary's Doucette Library of Teaching Resources, the Doucette Index is a searchable database of materials related to books for children and young adults. The search works by title or author, not by topic. Anne of Green Gables turned up eight resources, including two fact sheets.
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comprehensive option |
I wasn't able to locate an online Canadian dictionary, but yourdictionary.com is a comprehensive option. It includes thesaurus, multiple language choices, specialized glossaries, translation, style guides and word lists. Specialty dictionaries - education, etymology, metallurgy and carpentry - are accessed via the top navigation bar.
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resources and links |
An extensive list of resources, this site has links to writing contests, how-to info, book resources, tapes and CDs.
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thousands of entries |
For children 13 and older, the Diary Project is an international forum. There are thousands of entries in 24 categories, including: body image, ramblings, poetry and point of view. The site's privacy policy addresses confidentiality issues and cautions against sharing personal information online.
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interactive games |
Words and Pictures offers interactive games. Teaching materials are geared to a British audience, but offer a number of helpful resources.
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make-your-own-stories |
Interactive Flash games make this site a lot of fun for children and adults alike. Write a story by clicking on the words to fill in the blanks - I created one about a cat with scaly wings with a striped hotdog. Words are spoken out loud by the computer as you choose them and children can e-mail their final story to a friend. Kids can also rhyme a story, create a story or make a story for someone in their family.
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book info for teens |
Teen Reads is a beautifully designed site with hundreds of book options and descriptions. There are more than 1,000 book guides and links to book clubs for teenagers. The Readers Say section provides teenagers with a chance to comment on books they've read.
If a teenager is an avid reader, he/she will find lots of interesting information to help them choose the next book to read. If he/she isn't an avid reader, the colourful images and detailed information may be just the thing needed to get started.
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kids publish their writing |
Of kids, by kids, for kids - budding young authors from around the world can publish their work in the Storybook section of Kids Space. A area titled class work features school projects, some of which have come from India, Italy, Germany, Japan, the US and Korea. The one concern that I have with the site is the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, which says that works may be published in a variety of media styles (CDs, books) and that submissions become the property of Kids Space.
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assistance with language arts |
This bare-bones site consists of links to language arts resources created by teachers for teachers.
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actors read online |
The American Screen Actors Guild Foundation has created a vibrant site where well-known actors read streaming video books for children - complete with illustrations. Each e-reading comes with a lesson plan and activity guide. There are only about a dozen books available and you can choose between three file size options for opening the story. Listening to the stories is a lot of fun.
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a way for young writers to be published |
Stone Soup encourages young writers less than 13 years of age to submit their work for publication. The web site supplements the magazine. It includes hundreds of pieces of original published work, including some stories read aloud by authors. Canadian children are regularly published in the magazine. Submissions must be sent by mail and publication on the web site is based on editorial choice.
Lynda Scarrow is the College's web editor. She can be reached at lscarrow@oct.ca.
Not all sites are available in both English and French. For additional sites or for French sites related to this topic, Cyberespace.
