Comments on: The Best Sources For Free & Accessible Printable Books http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/07/31/the-best-sources-for-free-accessible-printable-books/ ...For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:45:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Sylvia Lieshoff http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/07/31/the-best-sources-for-free-accessible-printable-books/comment-page-1/#comment-5794 Sylvia Lieshoff Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:54:54 +0000 http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/?p=4146#comment-5794 When I think about fast, free, accessible and fun (!) books that folks can make themselves, I think of www.realebooks.com. Realebooks are free online family-friendly (really books) picture books created by parents and children in many family literacy programs across the country. They can be written and designed by – you! (teachers, parents, children, students). The software is very simple to use (and did I mention, free or inexpensive?) and even children master the program quite easily and quickly. You can go to the website and see hundreds of these books AND you can even download a free version of the software. You can even put video clips into the online books – and add voice! Way too cool! Cheers! Sylvia When I think about fast, free, accessible and fun (!) books that folks can make themselves, I think of http://www.realebooks.com.

Realebooks are free online family-friendly (really books) picture books created by parents and children in many family literacy programs across the country. They can be written and designed by – you! (teachers, parents, children, students). The software is very simple to use (and did I mention, free or inexpensive?) and even children master the program quite easily and quickly. You can go to the website and see hundreds of these books AND you can even download a free version of the software. You can even put video clips into the online books – and add voice! Way too cool!

Cheers!
Sylvia

]]> By: Roselink http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/07/31/the-best-sources-for-free-accessible-printable-books/comment-page-1/#comment-5587 Roselink Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:10:07 +0000 http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/?p=4146#comment-5587 Hello Larry, I'm soooo happy to see my nickname on your box of wonders (aka blog). It was my pleasure to share with you this little humble contribution. I also noticed the religious flavour of the site but it definitely offers some good resources, especially the printable section which I use very often with my younger students and also for special holidays activities. They have been really helpful on those occasions when sts don't feel like doing any "curricular stuff" and particularly with students at risk. I would also like to share with you a very practical (cheap) and effective way of motivating and engaging very difficult students, those who, as a matter of fact, do not want to be at school any longer but they must because our educational legislation says so. A friend of mine ( teaching expert herself in Spanish: psicopedagoga) passed the idea on to me. It consists on making students to colour mandalas. According to the Wikipedia, "In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective". Trust me, they really work. It is an amazingly easy and cheap method to reinforce concentration and improve behaviour, besides the resulting coloured mandalas are beautiful and can serve as classroom decoration. In http://www.mandalaproject.org/education/main.html you can find "the mandala approach to teaching" which I didn't know it even exist until very recently. http://www.free-mandala.com/es/start.html http://recopilaciones.arredemo.org/mandalas/ http://mandala-colorier.com/ This long comment (sorry) offers me the possibility of making one suggestion, have you ever considered starting a new list? One such as The Best Teaching Resources for Students placed at Risk (with behavioural, motivational, racial, language problems) academically underachievers, socially incompetent, etc..... Best regards. Rosa Hello Larry, I’m soooo happy to see my nickname on your box of wonders (aka blog). It was my pleasure to share with you this little humble contribution.
I also noticed the religious flavour of the site but it definitely offers some good resources, especially the printable section which I use very often with my younger students and also for special holidays activities. They have been really helpful on those occasions when sts don’t feel like doing any “curricular stuff” and particularly with students at risk.

I would also like to share with you a very practical (cheap) and effective way of motivating and engaging very difficult students, those who, as a matter of fact, do not want to be at school any longer but they must because our educational legislation says so. A friend of mine ( teaching expert herself in Spanish: psicopedagoga) passed the idea on to me. It consists on making students to colour mandalas. According to the Wikipedia, “In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective”. Trust me, they really work. It is an amazingly easy and cheap method to reinforce concentration and improve behaviour, besides the resulting coloured mandalas are beautiful and can serve as classroom decoration.

In http://www.mandalaproject.org/education/main.html you can find “the mandala approach to teaching” which I didn’t know it even exist until very recently.
http://www.free-mandala.com/es/start.html
http://recopilaciones.arredemo.org/mandalas/
http://mandala-colorier.com/
This long comment (sorry) offers me the possibility of making one suggestion, have you ever considered starting a new list? One such as The Best Teaching Resources for Students placed at Risk (with behavioural, motivational, racial, language problems) academically underachievers, socially incompetent, etc…..

Best regards.

Rosa

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