Language Arts Virtual Learning Resources

These are TED Talks aimed at younger audiences.

Collection of resources where you can search for eBooks and audiobooks of literature in various formats.

Collection of eBooks and audiobooks of common high school literature and readings

Collection of eBooks and audiobooks of common grade 7 literature

These 8 Crash Course Literature videos cover Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.You can see the whole playlist here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtOeEc9ME62zTfqc0h6Pe8vb

Collection of videos from Teaching Without Frills on reading comprehension strategies.

Collection of videos from Teaching Without Frills that focus on providing children with phonological awareness practice and demonstration.

Collection of videos from Teaching Without Frills about writing how-to, or procedural, writing.

(this description is from the Brainpop website) BrainPOP is a pioneering developer of engaging, animated content that motivates and inspires children to learn. Hosted by the irresistible duo of an expressive orange robot named Moby and his teen companion Tim, BrainPOP movies cover everything from the Underground Railroad to the atomic model to Shakespeare. Enrichment materials like interactive quizzes, experiments and creative activities supplement each one. Topics – aligned with national education standards and searchable by state standards – are grouped within the subjects of Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Technology and Arts & Music. Our ever-expanding library currently consists of more than 650 movies for grades 3-12. All movies are closed-captioned and many are also available in Spanish at es.brainpop.com. In 2006, BrainPOP launched BrainPOP Jr. (www.brainpopjr.com) for students in grades K-3. Co-starring Moby and his pleasantly precocious friend Annie, BrainPOP Jr. movies explain topics in a grade-appropriate manner. Each is bolstered by features such as educational games, quizzes, reading recommendations and interactive writing prompts. All text is read aloud, enabling even early learners to explore and navigate the site.

Blog post that lists sites that offer free books for download from the public domain.

Audible is offering free audio stories as long as schools are closed.

CommonLit (www.commonlit.org) is a free collection of fiction and nonfiction for 4th-12th grade classrooms, organized by themes and Lexile reading level. Need a supplemental or paired text fast? CommonLit.Org makes it easy! 

According to TechedUpTeacher, "Newsela is a site that not only takes current events and aligns them with common core, but also allows you to increase or decrease the difficulty of the article. If that wasn’t enough, they have quick quizzes your students can take while they read!"

The Google Ngrams Viewer can be applied in the classroom to investigate the living nature of language.

ScootPad is a great resource.  I like it because educators can set a grade level for the student and add specific assignments for each student.  Parents can also log in and give "homework" to students allowing for parents and teachers to be on the same page.  ScootPad offers a limited free service but even purchasing a subscription is very affordable (around $100 per year for an entire classroom).  Kids get immediate feedback on their answers which can be a good or bad feature.  It's nice that students can see how they have done but if they have any sort of math anxiety, having their wrong answers highlighted in red can be a bit frustrating.  Overall, this program is user-friendly and a great educational value.

A twist on mad libs, where students can practice nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc…