Why We Decided on Virtual Dictionary Use

When my family downsized to prepare for our move into an RV this year, we eliminated many “things” that we owned.  We got rid of the idea of having 5 frying pans and 20 dinner plates and chose only the things that we knew we would need.  One of the hardest things for me to downsize was my book collection.  When we moved to Morocco, 3 years before I had gotten rid of all of my books, except my cookbooks, as I replaced my book collection with a handy little Kindle.  However, we brought books for the kids, and we added to it over the three years we were in Morocco.  The boys had amassed a large collection of books – plus all of the books I kept in my classroom.  Needless to say it was a big task to decide what stayed and what went, especially knowing we were going to be homeschooling.  I had certain fiction books I knew must stay and I tried to keep all of our anthologies – in order to get more bang for our buck.  But what to do with our reference books, like dictionaries?  After some hmmming and hawing, we decided that the virtual dictionaries available to the boys on their Kindles were just as good, and got rid of the dictionaries.

My fifth grader uses the dictionary on his Kindle regularly, especially because he can simply click on a word in a book that he doesn’t know and have the definition pop up on the screen.  But then, my first grader hit the section of his language arts curriculum that deals with dictionary skills, and I held my breath briefly, hoping that we had made the right decision.  Luckily, the dictionary on his Kindle was perfect for working on guide words and alphabetical order, which are the most important skills of dictionary use anyways.  During a recent trip to the library, we did look at a hard cover dictionary – which my son observed was “really heavy”.  I’m so glad we don’t have to find room for that thing in our RV!

What reference books do you now use virtually?

For more information on our life in the RV, don’t forget to stop by our sister site – RVing with the Rakis.

Over 60 Websites for Your Classroom

It’s time for this week’s Wednesday Website suggestion, but this week instead of one website, I have over 60 for you.  I actually compiled these suggestions into an E-Book that is available to you completely free!  This E-Book is a compilation of my “tried and true” favorite websites to use in an elementary classroom.  It has two sections, one sorted by grade level and one sorted by subject.  I hope that this compilation will be of benefit to those teachers who truly want to use websites as teaching tools, but are just not sure what sites to use.

You can download your free copy as a PDF file from Teachers Pay Teacher, or in the format that is best for your e-reader (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at Smashwords.  Either way, feel free to use and share this resource, and don’t forget to come back for next week’s Wednesday Website Suggestion!

Enhance Your Calendar Math

One of the best things I’ve done this year is to add Calendar Books to my Calendar Math program.  I love using calendar math to get my students looking more at numbers in a more in depth way.  I think the routine of calendar helps students to internalize numbers and gain a better understanding of the workings of numbers.  My calendar books have made my students more engaged during our whole group calendar time, and have given them some ownership over the learning that happens there.  I’ve made a little video for you of how I use these calendar books.

 

 

Next year, I want to do more with this concept, so I started making different levels for my learning pages.  I know have 6 levels, of which I think I’ll use 3 next year, and I have 12 different cover pages, one for each month.  I put them all together into an E-Book to share with you.  You can even grab two sample books for FREE – one for June and one for September at Raki’s Shop, or download all of the leveled pages and covers for $7.00.  This product is available exclusively at Raki’s Shop, grab one and be ready for a year’s worth of Calendar Math.  I will be so excited to use this from the beginning of the year last year – don’t you hate when you figure out something to works great, but the year’s more than half over! 

I’d love it if you tell me how you use Calendar Math in your classroom.