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The Rituals and Routines of a Writing workshop in grades 4-5

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10 Online Tools to Engage Kids in Writing - Minds in Bloom

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Julie Petersen joins us today to share 10 really great online tools for getting kids more engaged in writing. We all know getting kids to write is a struggle sometimes, and these tools will help make it more fun and interactive! Do you know someone who loves writing?

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Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

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Tips for Maintaining Community and Connection in Virtual Reading and Writing Workshops (Grades 3-8)

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As schools around the world are forced to close their doors, teachers and parents are left scrambling to support their children's education while confined to home. We know this is stressful, confusing, and occasionally overwhelming. We hope we can help. Here are some great starting points to help support learning.

Image from The Kid Should See This

The Kid Should See This
Want to engage and delight your kids with videos but don't trust Youtube's algorithm? For years, designer, mom and kid-blogger extraordinaire Rion Nakaya has collected some of the best and most thinky-fun videos for kids. The site's videos range from STEAM topics to history to culture-focused content, carefully curated by someone who cares deeply about children.

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DIY
DIY is a site that helps kid-makers spread their wings with a library of hundreds of hands-on videos, tutorials, and project ideas. There are a variety of courses for children looking to learn how to animate their drawings, build intricate sculptures with Legos, and so much more! Getting kids involved in self-directed projects will help families get through these long days at home.

Tinybop Schools
Have you heard about Tinybop Schools, our newest product which brings our apps to the web (along with resources and support for educators)? We've just made Tinybop Schools available for free through July to help get through the school year. Tinybop Schools allows learners to explore 10 interactive models that simulate life science, physical science, and earth science topics. Teachers will gain access to additional educational resources such as handbooks and printables.

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Vintage Books My Kids Love
While this site hasn't been updated in some time, it's a deep well of fantastic picture book ideas for younger children. Most of these books are available super inexpensively as used-books from online resellers (including Amazon). The site curator, Burgin Streetman, is a children's book editor with a deep understanding of what makes a great picture book. We also love her other not-updated-but-still-super site Graphic Novels My Kid Loves.

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Outschool
Outschool offers hundreds of live online classes to indulge your child's wildest curiosities and interests! From video game design to Harry Potter-themed writing classes, your child will love learning alongside peers and experienced teachers with Outschool.

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Ted-Ed
On the Ted Ed website, you will find tons of short-form videos to spark the curiosity and creativity of all learners. Teachers and parents can customize interactive lesson plans and discussions or browse through existing ones to remain actively engaged in their child's learning experience.

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With Seesaw, kids are inspired to push their thinking and expand on what they have learned with pictures, videos, text, and more! These creative portfolios allow learners to explore their ideas and provide teachers and parents with the insight they need to assess their child's understanding.

Listenwise
Want to get kids off screens? Listenwise gives you access to a library of standards-aligned podcasts that cover language arts, current events, social studies, and science-related topics. Kids are able to listen to the podcasts, read interactive transcripts, and test their learning comprehension.

Khan Academy
Khan Academy is something of a miracle and most of you probably know about its short-form math videos. But did you know you and also find video lessons in history, science, and coding. There's even a fantastic set of courses called Pixar in a Box covering digital storytelling. Kids are able to go at their own pace, while teachers and parents can track their child's progress to make sure that every learner is able to succeed.

Newsela
The news today is overwhelming but important. Newsela helps organize the news for kids and grants them access to hundreds of stories and articles neatly arranged by reading level and subject matter. Teachers and parents can assign content, reading quizzes, and other activities that encourage deeper engagement and learning.

Image from Code.org

Code.org looks to foster creativity and an interest in computer science for kids of all ages. Through a variety of online courses, kids can learn the fundamentals of computer science in a way that is interactive, creative, and fun!

IXL
With IXL, kids can master common core skills in math, language arts, science, social studies, and Spanish. (aligned with New York State Standards). This site works well for kids who need repetition and practice of basic skills. You'll also find additional materials to help teachers and parents feel comfortable using the platform with their learners.

Epic!
Epic! features a library of over 35,000 children's books, reading quizzes, and educational videos for learners of all ages and reading abilities. Parents and teachers are able to track their child's progress and create customized collections. With Epic!, kids will gain access to hours of entertainment while also building literacy skills.

Image from Amazing Educational Resources Facebook group

Want to dive deep? The Facebook group Amazing Educational Resources is updating this open-sourced google doc with scores of offerings to help parents and teachers during these unusual times.

Finally, we should also mention Tinybop Loves our site for children's media we love. It's full of books, videos, sites, and songs that we think are the best of the best.

We would love to hear about what's working with your kids. Please send any suggestions or ideas, as well as feedback on Tinybop's other offerings, to support@tinybop.com. We plan to start posting semi-regular updates. To stay up to date on all things Tinybop and other wonderful things for kids, please sign up for our occasional newsletter here. Thanks!

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A few of our favorite sites for distance learning (part 1)

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As schools around the world are forced to close their doors, teachers and parents are left scrambling to support their children's education while confined to home. We know this is stressful, confusing, and occasionally overwhelming. We hope we can help. Here are some great starting points to help support learning.

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"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice."

Jazz Up Your K-5 Writers Workshop With Technology!

The new school year is sneaking up fast, and you're probably already fine-tuning your lessons for the Common Core. How will you teach the new technology standards for writing? Today we'll show you some free tools that add meaning and excitement to students' writing experiences.

First, do you know what the writing standards require in technology? If not, take a quick look before reading on. The expectations increase as kids move through the grades.

For example, kindergarteners must: "With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers."

First, second, and third graders must "use" (rather than "explore") those digital tools. Fourth and fifth grade students are required to use not just technology, but specifically the Internet to produce and publish writing.

So, how can you bring digital experiences into your writers workshop? The free tools below will get you started. They'll provide your students with rich opportunities to collaborate with peers and open the door to sharing their work with a huge audience.

Digital Tools, Grade by Grade
One way to approach digital applications is to use whatever is already available on your school's computers. Here's an inspiring portrait from Edutopia, showing how one fifth grade teacher guides students into using Apple software to publish student narratives, poems, and other creative projects.

Mrs. Dalesio's fifth graders are using iMovie and other digital applications to publish narratives, poems, and even math tutorials they've created.

These are inspiring examples by a teacher who's obviously a real tech whiz. But don't worry if you and your students aren't as tech savvy as Mrs. Dalesio and her class. If you teach younger students, or you just aren't ready to tackle video production, here are some equally exciting options.
StoryBird is a free online application students can use to publish their stories, poems, book reviews, ads, and anything else they can imagine. Younger children can work with friends, parents, and teachers to create online versions of their illustrated stories and share them. Although the tutorial below doesn't mention it, children can upload their own artwork. Try recruiting a few parent volunteers to learn the application at home and help you as roving assistants when you teach your class to use StoryBird. The 4 1/2 minute tutorial below will show you the creative possibilities in this simple tool.

A video tour of StoryBird, a free online application that allows students to publish and illustrate their work, collaborate with friends, and share their final projects with a large audience.

In Little Bird Tales, children can upload their own illustrated stories and record themselves reading to an online audience. Even kindergarteners can do this with help from adults, and older children can read their writing to large online audiences. We know kids who have entertained younger siblings on long car trips by playing Little Bird Tales for them on their parents' smartphones!

How does it work? Each reading is saved as a short video and stored on the site for others to view and hear. Little Bird Tales stories can also be emailed to family and friends; online Mother's Day cards, anyone? Though the interface is not as slick as S toryBird's, being able to hear the author's voice adds a something special, as you'll grasp when you hear the story below by four year-old Victor.

Little Bird Tales can even be shared by very young children like four year-old Victor. Much like StoryBird, it's a free online application that helps students practice reading and writing skills. Little Bird Tales also addresses the speaking and listening standards.

ePals (Grades 3-12)

The Common Core introduces a new writing element in third grade: keyboarding. As third graders learn to type with less effort, writing to pen pals from across the globe becomes a thrilling and viable activity. Try ePals, a safe-Internet company that gets great reviews and helps teachers integrate writing skills with social studies.

Partnering with classrooms around the world, teachers can introduce ePals to teach cyber-etiquette, parts of an email correspondence, grammar, and sentence fluency, not to mention geography and cross-cultural understanding. The program is set up so that teachers can view emails before their students. This allows teachers to pick out details to emphasize in classroom discussions.

The control it provides educators is one thing that makes this program so appealing. Teachers can create their own access and protection settings according to the needs and ages of their students. Find classrooms around the world to connect with here, and then click on the tutorial below to get started.

With ePals, your students can correspond safely with pen pals from other cultures.

Digital Publishing on Local Websites
Here are even more tools, some with links to student samples, from Nicole Dalesio, the teacher in the first video. But digital publishing can also be meaningful with less glitzy activities. Book reviews uploaded to your local library website, and persuasive letters or comments submitted to your town's online newspaper give kids a thrill, too. Writing for people they might actually know is meaningful and engaging, and helps kids connect their writing to an authentic purpose.

What digital tools have you tried with your students? What are you planning for the coming year? We'd love to know! Share your tech tools for publishing student work on our Facebook page, and we'll enter you in a drawing to receive a complimentary set of classroom privacy folders with word walls for your grade level!

Staff Spotlight: Herman Makes it Happen!

With a winning smile and a presence that glows, Awareness Ambassador Herman Humes brings not only 38 ½ years of classroom experience to his work, but also some wonderful personal qualities.

Here's something about Herman you probably don't know. During his long career teaching K-5 children, he also spent many summers as a group therapist for children whose parents were in co-dependency and substance abuse treatment. Herman also brought this training into the monthly Family Nights he created at his school with a long-time teaching colleague and friend, Arlynn King (now WriteSteps' coaching director). Among other things, Herman and Arlynn taught families healthy ways to relate to each other and solve challenges. They called their program Parents Empowering Parents, and were twice honored for their work with Ypsilanti Community Partnership awards.

Now retired from teaching, Herman loves sharing the good news about WriteSteps. "In my district, we forever struggled with writing," he said. "Writing was never my forte, so I was always nervous when trying to teach it to my students."

Although insecure with this subject, Herman says he kept trying because he knew that children who can write become good readers. He felt he was making progress with John Collins' approach to assessment and management, but still lacked the right instructional tools. Then, his colleague Arlynn discovered WriteSteps and told him, "You've got to see this!"

With Arlynn's help, Herman brought WriteSteps lessons to his kindergartners, who he said had an unusual amount of "high activity issues" and low academic skills.

"They just struggled a lot with school," he said. "Then, with WriteSteps, I saw incredible growth. I saw them 'buy into' writing, become comfortable with writing, and become proud of their writing."

Herman said his class did a lot of "publishing," leaving their stapled and illustrated stories with administrators and other teachers. The little books were also placed on shelves in their classroom - "and those were the books my students loved reading the most!"

Come see us at a conference this fall! You can meet WriteSteps team members, try the eWriteSteps teacher portal to our online lessons and videos, and win lessons, kindles, and other prizes. We've already been to Boston and Nashville this month, and you can meet us in Indianapolis in September. Curriculum Creator and third-grade teacher Denise Dusseau will exhibit at the Indiana Charter Schools Conference and Expo, September 20. Get more information here, and join our Facebook page to stay updated on more WriteSteps conference appearances!

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4 Free Technology Tools for Your Writers Workshop!

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"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice." Jazz Up Your K-5 Writers Workshop With Technology! The new school year is sneaking up fast, and you're probably already fine-tuning your lessons for the Common Core. How will you teach the new technology standards for writing?