Web-Based Resources

There are many educational and helpful resources on the web to help or enhance lessons for teachers and for students! 

First Resource (Resource Portal)


Name: Teachers Pay Teachers
URL: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/
How I found this resource: During my teacher assisting (Winter 2016) at Coopersville South Elementary I was placed in a fourth grade classroom. After getting settled in and learning the names of the students, their routine, and how my CT's classroom management worked, I started to ask her more questions about where she gets her resources (to set up the classroom as well as lesson plans). She introduced me to TPT and told me about how awesome this website was for lesson plans, templates, pre-made flashcards, etc. To sign up for an account is free, then there are hundreds of lessons to explore (some are free, some cost money) and you can share with other teachers! During one of my observations I did a math lesson with my fourth graders and I got all the ideas and resources from this website. I love it!
How you might use it in your final project: Since there are so many options for lessons and a wide variety of subjects, I found other ideas to keep students motivated during their spelling week.
TPT has flashcards you can purchase and use to create a word wall. Normally word walls are used for sight words, but in this case they can be used for spelling words as well. At the beginning of every week, the new spelling words will be posted on the word wall. They will be able to choose five of the most difficult words (to them) and practice spelling them. Their "exit card" out of the classroom each day will be to spell the word they practiced that day. This is a great exercise and good practice to get the words right on the test on Fridays.
What standards does the resource address: Common Core State Standards, CCSS



Second Resource


Name: Twitter
URL: https://twitter.com/
How I found this resource: I have known about Twitter for years now but at first I thought of it as a "diary" to share your thoughts with all your followers. Little did I know, you could connect with people, businesses, TV media, social media, and use it as an educational resource.
How you might use it for your final project: Since Twitter is big on using hashtags (searching a specific category), this is a great resource to connect with other teachers that are on Twitter, finding ideas for lessons or maybe even creating a class Twitter that students can use for assessments.

To incorporate Twitter and the use of hashtags in my spelling lesson, as a class we will create one account that everyone has access to along with a "classroom hashtag". By clicking on this hashtag, it will lead to a private class 'folder'. This will allow students to communicate with each other during the week and they are required to leave 4 comments (M,Tu,W,Th) to a different person. The comments can be what ever they want, as long as it either; A. Helps a peer with a word they are struggling with (ex. a funny way to remember how to spell the word, etc.) B. coming up with a sentence that has a spelling word in it (this will also be a bonus for their spelling tic-tac-toe assignment because they could possibly already have some of it done on Twitter). Teacher will check frequently during the week to make sure all students are partcipating and send out reminders.
What standards does the resource address: Any



Third Resource



Name: Pinterest
URL: https://www.pinterest.com/
How I found this resource: I found this amazing resource through friends and media. It has everything you could ever ask for! From an educational standpoint, there are many great resources, ideas and lessons you can pull off Pinterest and majority of it is free!
How you might use it for your final project: Search for alternative ideas on spelling lessons so students either have options or they can do different assessments throughout the year.

Instead of having the same assignment to do each week for spelling, on Pinterest I have found another fun activity for spelling that students can alternate throughout the weeks. This activity is called "Roll A Word". 
How it works:
For each word, student will roll a die. There will be a work sheet with a chart on it (a space for the word, a space for the number, and a space for the answer. After the student rolls the die; say it lands on 5...student will go to the key and look at the rule for #5.

If you roll a...
1. Give the definition
2. Give a synonym & antonym 
3. Write a sentence
4. Draw a picture
5. Make a connection
6. Your choice (choose one of the above)

Based on what you roll, student will have to fill in the answer part with the corresponding number.

This activity will take place every other week (tic-tac-toe on the other week) so students will have a break from just ONE activity, this is also a great way to keep students engaged and motivated if you give them choices!
What standards does the resource address: Any, CCSS