Get Ready for the 2012 WordGirl Definition Competition

On May 1, 2012 Scholastic is hosting a live WordGirl Definition Competition. During the live webcast classrooms can play along by submitting their responses to the questions. Some participating classrooms will be called in to participate live over the web. The competition will feature three rounds of questions about word usage and definitions. You can register for the event and get a pre-competition preparation kit here.

A Live Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island

Last week I received an email from Scholastic about a great virtual field trip opportunity. On March 29, 2012 Scholastic is hosting a live virtual field trip to Ellis Island. The field trip, for students in grades three and above, will be held at 1pm ET, 10am PT. The field trip will take the students on a tour of the island and the Ellis Island Museum. You can register for the event here.

Applications for Education
Scholastic has many good resources to help you prepare your students for the Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island. The Stories of Immigration page includes the personal stories of children immigrating to the United States. On the same page you will also find this Interactive Tour of Ellis Island. For offline activities, Scholastic offers this activity and templates for graphing patterns of immigration.

On a related note, I recommend checking out the Interactive Virtual Tenement Museum.

Character Scrapbook - A Tool for Student Reflections on Stories

Scholastic's Character Scrapbook provides a nice template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories. The template is quite simple to use. Students enter the name of a story and the name of their favorite character on the first page. On the next pages students list ten attributes of the character. The Character Scrapbook also allows students to create pictures of their favorite characters.

As you can see in the image above, Scholastic's Character Scrapbook doesn't limit students to human characters. Students can write about and create images of animal characters too.

Applications for Education
Scholastic's Character Scrapbook could be a great tool for getting students to think about their favorite stories. The Character Scrapbook has an easy print option so that you can print and display all of your students' works in your classroom.