Newsela

I am in love with the website Newsela.  For how long? Who knows.  But today was fabulous.

I had gotten an email from the company a while ago and what caught my eye was the mock-primary/caucus students could vote in.  My kids have been politically minded these days, so I brought it up to them and they wanted to sign up!  Today I printed instructions and about half the class signed up.  The site features current event articles about a variety of topics... science, sports, politics, war and peace, money, laws, health, kids, etc.  And teachers can assign articles for her class to read.  I can also see how many students have read an assigned article and have them take quizzes on the articles too!  I'm not going to use the site as homework, my intention is to use it as more of a "broaden your horizons" type thing.  We found some neat articles about a potential other planet found, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (read the article here), and a Nazi death camp survivor's death.  My kiddos were riveted!

The other cool thing that engaged my students pretty much all morning was our biome project.  Each group/individual has to be a travel agent convincing his/her classmates to buy a vacation package to their own biome.  They've been researching and finding pictures and sharing facts... it's so lovely.  Everyone is excited about it!