6-8 Interactive Language Arts Games

-Do your students struggle to break down a research topic into manageable subtopics? ThinkTank, a free tool from 4Teachers, helps students organize and refine a topic for research. Students click through six easy steps during which they define their topic, list several subtopics, and print a research organizer in outline form. ThinkTank is a great starting point for research for any major project, such as a biographical report, Science Fair, or unit project.

http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/index.html

-Are you teaching about dialogue, narrative writing, or storyboarding? Check out this online tool from Read, Write, Think, a site sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the International Reading Association (IRA), and the MarcoPolo Foundation. Students can create one, two, three, or six panels of a comic strip, add characters, props, dialogue and background, and then print the entire project.

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/

-Tales are categorized by themes such as Cinderella stories or Hansel and Gretel stories. Within each theme, students can learn about the history of the story, read an annotated version of the tale, find out about stories with similar plot lines, research the story in the arts (film, music, poetry, literature), see various illustrations of the story, and more. This is a great starting point for older students doing comparative studies on folklore.

http://www.wendy.com/children/

-Illustrated fables, folktales, fairy tales, and campfire stories are available for reading. The online text is large and very easy to read. Some areas have links that further explain the topic. For example, in the section on fables a student can learn more about Aesop and Ancient Greece by clicking on hot words that lead to links with brief explanations of the topic. Eleven stories are currently available.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/bio_cube/

-Biography maker

http://www.chompchomp.com/

-Interactive grammar instruction

http://www.readingmatrix.com/directory/pages/

-Analyzing Text, Reading Comprehension, Audio and Text, Proofreading, Short Stories, and Vocabulary

http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/tools/reading-ms.html

-MS Reading Resources

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmsv/smg/index.html
-Spelling games for grades K-8