Text-To-Speech is a powerful computer option, particularly valuable for struggling readers and students with visual issues. Once and while though, you’ll hear a word pronounced incorrectly, most often if it’s a proper name or a technical term. You can correct the pronunciation of a word in Clicker 5®, IntelliTools Classroom Suite®, and My Own Bookshelf®. Detailed instructions and screenshots for all three!

Do you know somebody you care for so much you’d like to give them the sun, moon, and stars? Now you can! Just give them the URL to download Stellarium! It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors, but it’s totally awesome on your computer screen. There are versions for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux (the source code).

I made several off line activities to go with Showertime! They include simple picture and word lotto, picture-to-word match, trace the word, and riddle clues to use with lotto or other activities. They are made with Boardmaker® using your pictures. –Alison Wade PDF version here to download!

There’s a lot of talk recently about all the electronic and digital versions of books that you can find on the web. I decided to create a resource list of these electronic books to share with the parents. Some of the books have pictures and some do not. There are some that are appropriate for preschool, elementary, middle and high school as well as college age students. The list was created to give any child that can’t read in a traditional way, access to more literacy.

The Inventions activity set uses the story of the invention of Velcro® by George de Mestral to explore the process of invention and what it takes to be a successful inventor. The anchor book, How Things Get Invented, is available at two reading levels, grades 2-3 and grades 4-5. There are also comprehension tests and a Cloze Pro® activity. The final piece of the Inventions activity set are writing activities in both Classroom Suite and Clicker 5 format, entitled Could I Be An Inventor? Bonus: Vocabulary list with definitions!

If you have several related grid sets, it makes sense to link them as an integrated study unit. This can be moved as a unit, so it is easy to share. It can be copied into the Clicker 5 shared files folder, so that it appears in Clicker Explorer. It can have a menu grid with links to all the activities of the unit, and instructions telling the student which to open first. Detailed instructional PDF. Bonus: Menu grid template!