Educating Super Learners: Monthly Newsletter of the ESL Department of Columbus Public Schools, Columbus, OH. March 2005 Vol. 1 Issue 6

In a perfect world, students would all finish their work at the same time and be ready to go on to the next assignment at the same time. Reality, however, often means that two kids will be finishing homework while three are testing, one is bored and five are working in a small group. In lieu of the regular spotlight column, this month is dedicated to quality educational websites where fun and learning go hand in hand. The vast collection of games, links and resources at these sites are curriculum-based, educational and best of all, free. Try them out yourself and you might just get hooked!

Funbrain: www.funbrain.com
Math baseball? Gorilla Grammar? A game matching periodic elements with their abbreviations? These educational games and hundreds more are available for students of all grade levels and abilities to play—and they won’t even realize they’re learning. There’s also a section of information for parents, teachers and a quiz lab. In the teacher section, they even offer a curriculum guide listing how specific games match up to certain curriculum areas.

Gamequarium: www.gamequarium.com
Besides the catchy tune you’ll get when you visit gamequarium.com, you’ll find the 1,500+ activities neatly divided into two categories: K-2 and 3+ resources. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is all elementary-level, however: the 3+ section contains activities, reading, assignments and games on topics such as the human body, energy, matter, space and oceanography. Some of the activities are teacher created and some student created. Aligned to the Missouri and Washington state standards, there is also a link to the sitesforteachers.com website—an invaluable site that lists hundreds of teacher-related sites by popularity.

Experience USA Today: www.usatoday.com/educate
Integrating reading, writing, speaking, listening, current events, daily lesson plans all in the popular format of USA Today, the USA Today K-12 Education website features a free, daily 4-page newsletter written for teachers to use in the classroom. Not only is the layout colorful and inviting to student readers, but each issue features an ESOL connections activity specifically written for ESL students. All daily Experience USA Today newsletters are archived on the site and have lots of discussion questions and curricular connection in each issue.

ITESLJ: http://a4esl.org/
The Internet TESOL Journal (ITESLJ) website, dedicated to teachers and students of ESL alike, contains a wealth of language-based vocabulary and grammar tests divided into three levels: easy, medium and difficult. Each level contains quizzes on parts of speech, tenses, usage, and a huge variety of other topic areas focused on good grammar skills. The advanced level quizzes has a special section on idiom usage and definition to test the knowledge of even the most experienced second language student.

Puzzlechoice: www.puzzlechoice.com
Many of us use word puzzles in all forms to reinforce content knowledge and vocabulary development in a fun way. Puzzlechoice is an excellent web resource to help incorporate word puzzles of all kinds into curriculum. The site is very adaptable—you can choose to print puzzles for classroom use or have students play interactive versions online. Crosswords, number puzzles, word searches, logic problems, quizzes, word play and a section for children’s choice (including shape, rhyme and color games) are some of the puzzles offered.

Many students learn through non-traditional methods. For those kinesthetic and visual learners, problems and puzzles online might be just the way to capture their interest, get them involved and interactive in the content they need to learn to succeed. Challenge your students to beat your own score or get them competing in timed or tournament-style game play and see how much they enjoy learning even when they think they aren’t.

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