This year the students have been introduced to a new vocabulary program, Sadlier-Oxford, that they seem to be enjoying. As an 8th grade ELA team we felt it especially important that the children spend time working on vocabulary instruction to supplement their academic studies. Once we delved into this program we noticed that many of the units included content specific vocabulary that was specific to their other academic classes such as science and social studies.
Another tool that we have began using is Google Classroom. Each student has their own unique login and password which allows them to access the content inside their classroom. Google Classroom also allows them to turn in some assignments such as book reports, journals, research assignments, essays, ect. Connected to their Google Classroom is google drive which allows them to create in google docs, google presentations........... Their google drive also allows them to work collaboratively with classmates on projects without the headache and hassle of parents scheduling time out of their bust schedule to try and get the children together at one home or the other.
The last tool that I wanted to tell you about today is the classroom Quizlet. Each week I create the vocabulary unit we are working on in Quizlet. Each quizlet unit comes complete with the word, the definition and a picture that can be associated with the word. Students can study the words using flashcards, they can take quizzes, there are a multitude of ways that students can interact with their vocabulary words each week using Quizlet and it is completely mobile.