Pinterest Educational Ideas and Activities

For those of you who aren't familiar with Pinterest, it's a quick and easy way for you to bookmark photos and web content that you want to remember.

As a Pinterest member, you "pin" photos or web content, and then you create thematic categories, or "boards," to organize your pins.

(Some of the boards I've created)

For me, Pinterest was initially a place in which I could create those "inspiration boards" people sometimes use. No printing, no cutting, no cluttered boards on my walls - I loved it!
Recently, Pinterest has become more of a web resource than anything else. Looking for a good recipe for eggplant? Want to know how to make your own cloth diaper? Looking for helpful activities around grammar rules? Want to know the latest fashion trends? Pinterest has a wealth of information! Just type in the search box and see all of the pins every member has every created related to your search!

(The first 7 of many results I found for "homophones")

Pinterest has become particularly popular with teachers! Gone are the olden days when you had to sneak cameras into other teachers' rooms in order to steal their ideas! Nowadays, a lot of educators proudly post "pins" of their ideas on Pinterest, making them available to the rest of the world!

There are increasingly a lot of activities parents are pinning that relate to summer fun, toddlers, early childhood education and other goodies!

Check out my "Teach" board on Pinterest for fun educational activities and tools!

Reading Help: Long Vowels, R-Controlled Vowels and Digrpahs

Hey, Parents!
Is your primary student having a difficult time with long vowel spellings? When he or she sees 2 vowels next to each other in a word, does he/she sound them out individually? Is he or she struggling to read word with the ar, ur, ir, er spellings?

Here are some helpful online tools to help your student with these specific challenges!!

First, you have some resources from Starfall.com. Starfall is a wonderful reading site with activities that are geared toward improving specific phonics challenges!

Starfall Website (www.starfall.com) (Once on the site, choose the "Learn to Read" section!)

Learn to Read: Play (Left Column)

Long A (#6): http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/silent-e/load.htm?f

Long E (spelled “ee”) (#7): http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/long-e/load.htm?f

Long I (spelled “i_e”) (#8): http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/long-i/load.htm?f

Long O (spelled o_e) (#9): http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/long-o/load.htm?f

Vowel Teams (“ai” “oa” etc.) (#11):

 http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/long-o/load.htm?f

R-Controlled vowels (#12, 13, 14):

http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/control-ar/load.htm?f,

http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/control-or/load.htm?f

                                    http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/control-r/load.htm?f

Long Vowel/R-controlled vowel review (#15):

http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/control-r/load.htm?f

Learn to Read: Book (Center Column)

1.     Jake’s Tale - Long A

2.     Pete’s Sheep – Long E

3.     Sky Ride – Long I

4.     Soap Boat – Long O

5.     Car Race – ar

6.     My Horse Glory – or

7.     Surfer Girl – er, ir, ur

Learn to Read: Skills (Right Column)

1.     Movie: Vowels

2.     Movie: Silent E

3.     Movie: Vowel Team

Next, you have some fun (and funky!) videos from PBS Kids' Between the Lions site! These videos offer students some fun tunes to help them remember phonics rules! 

PBS Videos (http://pbskids.org/lions/videos/)

1.     Two Sounds Made by G

2.     When Two Vowels Go Walking

3.     Two Sounds Made by C

4.     The a-r Song

5.     Double e, ee

6.     Double o, oo

     

    Know of other sites! Do tell!!!