"Word of the Week" Podcasts

I discovered a couple of great sites with vocabulary podcasts on them and from there I have developed a section on our classroom website with a "Word of the Week". This week the word prefix was introduced along with the prefix un-, so I created a podcast with the definition of prefix and then a sample to go with it.
What a great way to motivate students to learn spelling rules. Once they realize how the "Word of the Week" works then I will train a student or two to record it. Then those students can train other students. This can easily become a center in my guided reading program.

In the meantime, in the lab I had some great success with a website that tests student's knowledge of where the provinces and territories are. I have them do the quiz first and record their marks then I challenge them to beat their score within two weeks. Then we go off on other sites to learn the province's/territories' names. The students get so excited using the computers vs how bored they are when I do it with the texts. When it does come time to label and colour the maps the students are confident and do a great job overall.

There are lots of positive things happening with computers and grade 4s this year.