Deb Norton Tech

I am always looking for new tools to use with our Words Their Way word studies.  Lately we've been working a lot on synonyms, antonyms and word meanings.   Some of our favorite tools for working with our words have been: Dictionary.com Visuwords Spelling City Today I have two new tools to share with you! Recently I came across a new application called Easy Define . This site is great for looking up definitions for a lot of words all at once. See the screen captures below.    Here I copied and pasted three words.  You can paste as many as you wish.  When you click the List tab, your words show up with definitions.  Under the extras tab you can get synonyms for your words, quiz yourself, get flashcards in the form of a printable word document, or you can get worksheets.   Worksheets can be viewed online or downloaded.  Above are all of the choices.  I could see generating these for practice of reading or content ...

These two sites are great for introducing vocabulary or practicing spelling words. First is a site called Dotty Dots .  Type in the word you want and click go.  Then move your mouse over the dots and the dots go crazy and scramble all over the place.  Take the mouse away and the dots magically go back to where they belong.  We're going to use this in spelling.  We will spell the word, make the dots go crazy while students spell the word on their slates, then let the word go back to normal to see if we spelled the word correctly. DARN!  Word Mix is no longer available!  Thank you Janet for making me aware of this! Next is a site called Word Mix .  Type in a word and the letters will be put into tiles that can be arranged by clicking and dragging them.  Then type in the word and see if you were correct.