Technology Thursday is a weekly linky dedicated to all things technology related. Check out our Linky Parties page for details on how to link up!
Today I'm sharing some tips on how and where to find resources for stories from your basal reading series. My school uses Scott Foresman Reading Street, so the resources I link will be specifically geared towards that, but you can use these tips & sites no matter your series.
1. Google it!
This seems so obvious, but it took me several months of teaching before I realized that I could Google the name of our series and find all kinds of websites filled with resources that teachers have created or curated for me! Some of my favorites for Reading Street are Waltke's Web, and Mrs. Lewis's Classroom. I recently found this site, which has close reads for each story. I haven't tried them yet, because we are in the middle of a novel unit, but I will when we start using our basal again!2. Games!
We all know our students love to play games online, but who has time to create them every. single. week. (Not this girl!) The good news is, someone, somewhere DID have time! I can almost always find ready to go games on our favorite sites for our reading selections by searching the site, selection title (or sometime unit and week - U1W3, for example), and the series name. For example, I might search "Quia Reading Street Stretching Ourselves." My favorite game sites to search are Quia.com, Quizlet.com, StudyStack.com, and SpellingCity.com.3. Prezi!
Prezi has become so popular in classrooms, both for teachers and students to use in creating presentations. By default, most Prezi presentations are public, so you can find all sorts of great resources. I search for Prezis in the same way as games, "Prezi Weslandia."4. Collect your resources!
Once I find resources I want to use with my class, it is vital to collect them all in one place for easy student access. There are a couple of easy ways to do this. I personally use a Symbaloo WebMix on my class's Weebly page. {Here's a post from a while back on how I set that up.) It's easier than it looks to create a cute, kid friendly site with no ads!
Before I learned about Weebly, I used a PortaPortal site to collect resources for my classroom. You can sort into folders, so it makes links easy to locate. It's not the cutest site on the block, but it works well, and it's free with no ads! PortaPortal is even easier than Weebly to create a site on, so anyone can do it!
Where do you find great resources to supplement your district's curriculum? (Special thanks to Juliet for teaching me some of these tricks!)
Link up and share your tech tips, tricks, and resources with us!
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