National Poetry Month Competition and Resources

April is the time of year

For kids to write a poem.

There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Technology can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

Docs Rocks! 8 Engaging Activities for Google Docs

Google Docs is a wonderful word processor, but is much more than just that!

Although we can certainly use it to type up a report, take notes, or write an article, we can also get creative with the features and functions built into the program to make some fun learning activities.

Recently I did a video training webinar where I took a look at eight creative ways to use regular Google Docs features in new fun ways to practice and develop literacy skills. These include:

🟨 Highlighting for summarization

⬛ Creating blackout poetry

😀 Emojis for writing and summarizing

📘 Cloze reading activities

🐉 Making "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories

💡 Prewriting with embedded graphic organizers

✍️ Writing less to write better

⌨️ Generating punctuation practice

See below for the recorded training video, as well as resources, ideas, and templates for each of the activities.

Create "Cloze Reading" Activities with Google Docs Dropdown Chips

Cloze reading is an activity where a student is given a reading passage with certain words removed. Usually the student is also provided with a word bank, listing the missing words. The task is for the student to fill in the missing words.

This is a great activity to help develop and assess a student's reading comprehension skills. It is necessary for the student to read the passage carefully and consider the context to try to determine what words would best fill in the blanks.

There are lots of excellent resources online for creating your own cloze reading activities, but recently Google Docs has added a new feature called "dropdown chips" that makes it super easy to create a cloze reading activity right in Docs. This is especially helpful since many students are already familiar with Google Docs, and these activities can be pushed out through Google Classroom so each student gets their own copy.

See below for a short 8-minute tutorial video and detailed written directions on how to create a cloze reading activity in Docs using the new dropdown chips tool.

10 Googley Poetry Projects for National Poetry Month

April is the time of year

For kids to write a poem.
There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Google tools can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

15+ Awesome Article Sites for Students

Current event and general interest articles are a wonderful resource for students. They can be used for researching a topic, staying informed on what's happening in the news, pleasure reading, and more.

In the past I have shared some creative ways to use online articles as part of technology activities for student creativity and reading comprehension. For example:

• Improve Reading Comprehension with Google Docs "Black Out" - Blog Post Link 
• Black Out Poetry with Google Docs - Blog Post Link 

Additionally Google recently added a new lesson to their Applied Digital Skills curriculum called "Annotate Text in Google Docs". This activity covers how to take an article, copy and paste it into Google Docs, and then make digital notes to understand the article using comments, highlighting, tables, and more.

One big question, however, is where to find good articles. Over the years I have come across many excellent resources for articles that are written specifically for students. See below for my current list of these sites.

Google Slides Short and Long Vowel Sounds Audio Activity

In my most recent post I shared a collection of web-based audio recording tools that you and your students can use to record and add your voice to Google Slides, or any project. There are many fun and engaging ways this new feature for Slides could be used for teaching and learning.

In the past I have had a lot of fun making drag and drop manipulative activities such as the Build a Snowman, Build a Jack-o-Lantern, and One Fish Two Fish templates. My plan was to combine that sort of activity with the new audio feature in Slides.

To try this out I created an interactive, audio-based activity in Google Slides for practicing short and long vowel sounds. In this slideshow, students are presented with clipart images that have attached audio files with each word spoken aloud. The students can then drag and drop the images to a box with the corresponding vowel sound. (Even if you are not a primary teacher, you can learn a lot about grouping items for any audio activities you might want to make.)

To make this work well, I had to take advantage of a neat option in Slides for grouping items. This allowed me to combine each piece of clipart with its associated audio file. In this blog post we will take a look at how this is done, so you can use this trick to create similar multimedia activities. You can also get a copy of the final template below for short and long vowel sounds to use with your students if you would like.

Write Better with Writer's Highlighter Add-on for Docs

Writing is a process, not a one-and-done event. When a student is writing their first draft, it is important that they simply get their ideas out, mistakes and all. After that brain dump, now comes the work of editing and revising.

This is summed up beautifully in the following quote:

"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke." - Arthur Plotnik

There are many tools and techniques available to assist with the editing process. A while back I covered many such resources in my blog post "Self-Editing Tools for Student Writing in Google Docs". Recently I came across a new add-on for Google Docs that deserves to be added on to this list.

The tool is a free add-on called "Writer's Highlighter". It can be used in several ways, but the main focus is to highlight words in your document that match a customized list. For example, these could include overused words or phrases, including "very", "really", "stuff", and more. The add-on can also color-code your sentences based on their lengths.

See below for more details and directions on how to use this very useful tool. Or, rather I mean "this helpful tool".

10 Writing Prompt Tools for Creative Inspiration

I love writing… blog posts, stories, poems, and more. As much as I love it though, writing can be a challenge. Often one of the most difficult parts is just getting started. Sometimes we just need a little inspiration, a jump start to get us thinking down a new path.

When my daughter was younger we used to do poetry nights where we would use a website (Watch Out for Snakes) that would randomly create titles for us by putting together adjectives and nouns. We would then challenge each other to write a poem based on one of the prompts, followed by reading our new creations. Yes, I have always been a nerd.

Just like those random titles inspired me to compose poems, such tools can help our students when they need to write a journal entry, short story, essay, article, poem, or such. Thankfully there are many resources available to use for writing prompts, story starters, and other writing inspiration. In this blog post we will take a look at 10 example tools to use in your class.

By the way, if you are interested to see some examples of what came out of my poetry nights, feel free to check out Elemental Love, Moonstruck Conifer, and Smallest Pony.

Create Halloween Rebus Stories with Emojis and Google Docs

In earlier posts I have shared Google Docs templates for creating Emoji Rebus Stories for both Wintertime and Valentine's Day. With Fall coming soon, I have put together a Halloween-themed version.

Anyone who grew up reading Highlights magazine in the dentist waiting room will quickly recognize a rebus. Basically it is a story where some of the words are replaced by images. This can be a fun activity for students, both to create and to read. It may even help with younger students who are not proficient at spelling but can choose the image for the word they want.

See below to get a copy of the template, as well as detailed directions for how to use it.

Create Your Own Story Cubes with Google Drawings

Story cubes have long been a popular item to give inspiration for writing. Typically they are regular cubes with a different picture or word on each face. Students can pick a few cubes and then roll them to randomly get elements for a story.

Although you can certainly buy these cubes, you can also make you own. Better yet, students can each make several story cubes and then you will have dozens and dozens to use from your class.

One easy way to make your own story cubes is to use Google Drawings with pictures, emojis, or text. See below to get copies of my Google Drawings Story Cube templates, along with detailed directions on how you and your students can make these.

Googley Poem Projects for National Poetry Month (or any time of year)

April is the time of year

For kids to write a poem.
There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Google tools can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

Springtime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

Spring is here, and April is National Poetry Month, so what better time to have your students work on their creative writing skills with a Springtime-themed writing activity.

In the past I have shared Google Drawing templates for students to create drag-and-drop "magnetic" poetry with a winter-theme as well as for Valentine's Day.

This time I have updated the template for Springtime. Just like before, doing this activity with technology such as Google Drawings provides many benefits:

• No limit on the quantity of words provided. Just copy and paste more of them as needed.
• Great tech skills practice with dragging and dropping and copying and pasting.
• Ability to edit the words provided if needed.
• Ability to add your own words.
• Easy collaboration with others.
• Easy to share or download your final creation.
• No pieces to get lost.
• It’s free!

See below to get your free copy of the Springtime Magnetic Poetry template to use with your students (or yourself) however you want, as well as directions on how to use it.

3 Googley Valentines Activities for Kids

With Valentine's Day coming up, this is a great time to highlight some activities I really love! In this case I am talking about technology activities for students that tie into the holiday theme while also promoting creativity and writing.

I this blog post I will be sharing three Valentine-themed projects that use Google tools. Two of them are ideas I have shared in the past, and one of them is new twist on an old idea for this post. Hopefully you find all of them to be fun ways to engage your students, while working on practical skills.

See below for a description of each activity, access to all the templates, and links to the original blog posts for the projects I am re-sharing. Hope you love them!

Write Right with Google Tools

Writing is a skill that crosses all subject areas and all grade levels. No matter what you teach, it is critical for your students to be able to express their ideas clearly when writing.

There are a multitude of ways for students to improve their writing, including many technology tools that come from Google or that work with G Suite. With these technology tools, the writing process can be improved at all stages from planning to writing to self editing to peer editing to assessment to revising to publishing.

Over the years I have done many blog posts on tech tools for the various stages of the writing process. To make it more convenient, I have pulled together all of those different resources into this one post. See below for an overview of Google tools that can be used to help students and teachers through the writing process.

For each portion of the writing process I have listed some key resources and ideas, but have also linked to my earlier blog posts for each. Be sure to click the links for the related blog posts in each section to get all of the directions, examples, and resources for each.

Googley Wintertime Activities for Kids

[Updated as of December 2022]

As we get closer to the holiday break, it is expected and understandable that our students start getting a little distracted. They are looking forward to lots of days off, holiday celebrations, gifts, and more. Let's be honest … we may be a little distracted as well.

 
This is a time of year when we look for some fun activities to keep our students focused and active. But we don't just want busy work. If possible it is great to find projects that are fun, tie into wintertime themes, and still provide our students with a chance to be creative, write, or improve some content area skills.

To help out with that, I have put together eight wintertime-themed activities that use free Google tools, including Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drawings:

⛄ Activity #1 - Build a Snowman with Google Slides

🎄 Activity #2 - Decorate a Holiday Tree with Google Slides

🧲 Activity #3 - Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

📬 Activity #4 - Holiday Greeting Cards with Google Drawings

🎁 Activity #5 - "12 Days of Christmas" Guided Google Sheets Math Activity

🌟 Activity #6 - Pixel Art Ornaments with Google Sheets

❄️ Activity #7 - Wintertime Emoji Rebus Stories with Google Docs

💡 Activity #8 - Holiday Lights Writing with Google Docs

Some of these are projects I have shared in the past, while others are new twists on previous posts. Hopefully some of these will be a good match for your students to keep them busy AND learning as we head into the holidays.

Turkey Templates for Thanksgiving Creativity and Writing

Last month I shared my "Build a Jack-O-Lantern" Google Slides activity, which I based off of my "Build a Snowman" activity from last year. Each one of these was designed to let students be creative, learn some tech skills, and practice their writing.

Over the past week or so I have received several emails and Tweets asking if I also had made anything for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I have not created any Thanksgiving-themed activities (yet), but I am so excited to share that other folks have.

Two awesome educators worked from my Snowman and Jack-O-Lantern templates to create their own Turkey versions. Although based on my original templates, these educators clearly put a lot of time and creativity into making their own versions for Thanksgiving.

See below for a brief description of the two templates, as well as links to get your own copies for your students to use.

Build a Jack-O-Lantern with Google Slides

A few years ago I created my "Build a Jack-O-Lantern" activity for Google Slides. It was a giant hit with students as it let them be creative while improving their writing skills and tech skills.

With Fall here once again, I decided to revisit this favorite activity and add a new twist to it. In the years since I first created this project, we now have an amazing new tool in the Chrome Web Extension called Mote.

Mote is a free tool that makes it easy for you and your students to record your voice and add it directly into your slideshow (or document, form, email, and so much more). With Mote we can make this activity even more engaging than ever.

• You can use Mote to add audio support to the activity by recording directions and embedding them right into the slideshow.
• Your students can use Mote to record themselves reading aloud the Jack-O-Lantern story they write, and embed their narrated story into their slide.
• And the students can record themselves making spooky sound effects or speaking for their pumpkin.

I had the pleasure of recording a video with Jon Neale and Sue Tranchina for their pop-up Mote PD series. See below for the short video explaining how your students can do the "Build a Jack-O-Lantern" activity with Google Slides and Mote, as well as detailed written directions.

Create "Pi Poems" with Google Sheets

A poem can take on many different forms: sonnet, limerick, haiku, free verse, acrostic, and more. One fun form of poetry that mixes writing and math is the "Pi Poem".

A "Pi Poem" is composed of words where the length of each word is equal to each digit of pi in order. So for example, the beginning of the poem would be made of a 3-letter word, 1-letter word, 4-letter word, 1-letter word, and 5-letter word, for the beginning of pi which starts as 3.1415. Punctuation doesn't count.

This fun student writing activity could plug into the school year in several places:

• During your poetry unit
• National Poetry Month in April
• When working on vocabulary skills, especially synonyms
• When teaching about pi in math class
• For "Pi Day" each year on March 14th
• Anytime you are looking for a fun cross-curriculum activity for math and ELA

To help with this activity, I have created a Google Sheets "Pi Poem" template. The template makes it easier to create your poem with helpful boxes for each letter of each word. See below to get your own copy of the template, directions for use, some other helpful tech hints for the project, and a sample finished product.

Hipster Google: Library Edition

A few months back I shared a blog post and webinar on "Hipster Google - Google Tools You Probably Never Heard Of".

Recently I had the privilege to do a new version of that presentation with a focus on tools that would be valuable for libraries, media literacy, research, searching, and more. This was done for Infohio, Ohio's PreK-12 Digital Library, as part of their Boot Camp 2017 series of webinars.

For "Hipster Google: Library Edition" we take a look at a dozen Google tools that are lesser known, or maybe some you heard of but have not had a chance to use much, or even tools that are brand new to you. Even though these tools may not be as popular or as widely known, they are still very useful in school settings.

See below for access to the 1-hour Infohio webinar, as well as the slideshow presentation, and details on all of the Hipster Google tools covered in this particular training. For the original version of Hipster Google (with many different tools) see my earlier post "Hipster Google - Google Tools You Probably Never Heard Of".

Using Named Versions in Docs to Track Writing Drafts

Writing is a process. You are never really done. You are just at your current version of whatever you are working on.

This is also true for students and the writing they do in school. At least it should be true. Students should not just write their essay, paper, report, or story once, then turn it in and be finished with it. A critical part of writing is getting feedback, making changes, adding new content, and trimming out what is not needed. And then doing it again. And again.

Thankfully Google Docs has always made it easy for students to write, and then for teachers and peers to leave feedback (text, voice, video, and handwritten), and then for students to make changes to their work.

Now though, it is even easier for teachers and students to keep track of those big mile markers when a paper goes from rough draft to revised draft to final copy. Recently Google gave Revision History a face lift, renaming it to Version History and adding the new ability to name specific versions.

See below how this new process works, and how you and your students can use this to improve the clarity of the editing process.