Vocabgrabber reprise

A few Grand Forks Central teachers got to look at and use Vocabgrabber at last week's professional development. Click here for detailed information about Vocabgrabber and what it does.

A game-changer......a pretty amazing vocabulary resource

If you're looking for a rich vocabulary website, one with games and graphic organizers and links to word lists, vocabulary.com is the place to go. There is enough to keep a reader busy for a while, maybe even a fortnight ;)

One of the best parts of the site is the search function. Simply type in a word and see what happens. Take a look at the result when the word "love" is typed in the search box.

The site also features a host of resources including VocabGrabber, something that's better experienced than explained. Click here to see what VocabGrabber does with the Bill of Rights. And you can add VocabGrabber to your browser toolbar, so you can use it on a webpage.

To create a word list at VocabGrabber, you must have an account; the account is not free. Still the free option is good.....actually, it's kind of amazing.

A picture is worth a thousand words or so...

Free Technology for Teachers is a terrific blog for learning about online resources. Take a look at Snappy Words, a free online visual dictionary and thesaurus, profiled in a post at Free Technology for Teachers.

And if you're interested in visual dictionaries and thesauri (or is it thesauruses?) take a look at Visuwords.

Snappy Words and Visuwords both do really cool stuff with words. Try them out; the results will speak volumes...almost literally.

Better late than never...

The word of the week for September 27 to October 1, 2010 is perseverance.

A glimpse at our professional development

Grand Forks Central special education teacher Kelli Henke (center) digs in with her GFC colleagues during professional development the morning of  September 28, 2010. The focus was vocabulary; teachers worked together in a large group, thinking and talking about how students best learn words. After the large group session, teachers went to breakout session led by the peers.

The professional development was planned by the Grand Forks Central Literacy Committee.

The word of the week for September 20-24, 2010 is...

Another Wordle update

Grand Forks Central's word of the week for September 7-10, 2010 is RESPONSIBILITY, one of the Character Education words that are part of the Grand Forks Public School District's Character Education program.

FYI: Wordles for words of the week will appear in a slideshow on the sidebar of this blog.

Watch for Wordles

To increase student awareness of vocabulary and to have fun, Grand Forks Central is featuring a word a week. This words will appear with some of their synonyms on posters throughout the school.

The word for the week of August 30 to September 6, 2010 was INFER. (Check out the Wordle above)

If you want to know more about Wordle, click here.