Alphabetimals - A Dictionary of Animal Sounds

Alphabetimals is a nice website on which you will find some nice resources for helping young children learn the alphabet. The primary feature of Alphabetimals is a dictionary of animals and the sounds that they make. On the Alphabetimals dictionary page kids can find a handful of animals listed for each letter of the alphabet. When students click on a letter they hear the sounds made by the animal in the picture. Clicking on the letter a second time will give students the audio pronunciation of the animal pictured.

Another neat feature of Alphabetimals is the name typer. In the name typer kids can use the Alphabetimals characters to spell out any word that they like. Just type in the word and it will be displayed with the Alphabetimals characters. You can then print out the Alphabetimaltized (yes, I just made up that term) version of the word. Alphabetimals also offers free printable flashcards, an alphabet poster, and alphabet coloring pages.

Alphabetimals is funded by sales of Alphabetimals products like posters and tee shirts. For every product purchased they donate a book to Books for Africa.

Applications for Education
Alphabetimals offers some nice little resources to help you help children learn the alphabet. For folks like me who are not artistically inclined, the option to type a word and print it in an alphabetimalized version could be a nice way to print and display vocabulary words in your elementary school classroom.

A Nice Tool Students Can Use to Create Alphabet Picture Books

Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of common words. In the video below I demonstrate how to use this tool.


Applications for Education
Read Write Think offers a bunch of lesson plans based around the use of Alphabet Organizer. Some of those lesson plans include alphabetizing with original stories, creating ABC books as assessments, and learning about the alphabet book genre.

Kids Can Create Alphabet Books With Alphabet Organizer

Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of common words. This is accomplished by having students choose a letter of the alphabet, write a word that begins with that letter, then upload a picture that is representative of that word. For example, I chose "D," wrote "dog," and upload a picture of my dogs.

Alphabet Organizer allows students to create charts or simple booklets from the words and pictures they've uploaded. Completed works can be saved as PDFs, printed, or emailed to teachers.

Applications for Education
Read Write Think offers a bunch of lesson plans based around the use of Alphabet Organizer. Some of those lesson plans include alphabetizing with original stories, creating ABC books as assessment, and learning about the alphabet book genre.

Alphabetimals - A Fun Way to Learn the Alphabet

Alphabetimals is a nice website on which you will find some nice resources for helping young children learn the alphabet. The main feature of Alphabetimals is an interactive flipbook featuring animal sounds and the pronunciations of animal names.

The Alphabetimals characters can spell out any word that you would like. Just type in the word and it will be printed for you. You can then print out the Alphabetimaltized (yes, I just made up that term) version of the word. Alphabetimals also offers free printable flashcards, an alphabet poster, and alphabet coloring pages.

Alphabetimals is funded by sales of Alphabetimals products like posters and tee shirts. For every product purchased they donate a book to Books for Africa.

Applications for Education
Alphabetimals offers some nice little resources to help you help children learn the alphabet. For folks like me who are not artistically inclined, the option to type a word and print it in an alphabetimalized version could be a nice way to print and display vocabulary words in your elementary school classroom.

Alien Buddies - An iPad App for Learning Shapes, Numbers, Letters

Alien Buddies is an iPad and iPhone app designed for pre-k students to practice recognizing shapes, letters, and numbers. The app provides leveled games in which students practice recognizing patterns and sequences. The activities for recognizing letters and numbers have audio and visual prompting modes. Alien Buddies normally costs $1.99 but I received an email from the app's publisher informing me that it is available for free today, January 27th.

Factor Samurai - A Fun Factoring Game

Factor Samurai is a nice little iPhone / iPad app that students can use to practice identifying prime numbers. The app is a game in which students use a Samurai sword to chop numbers that can be factored into smaller values. As numbers appear on the screen players have to choose is they should chop them or let them pass.

The producers of Factor Samurai also produce a simple iPhone / iPad app called Alphabet Zoo for practicing recognizing the sounds of the alphabet. Each letter has an animal and animal sound (not all sounds are actual animal sounds) associated with it. The purpose of the animal picture and sounds is to help kids recognize the sounds of the letters of the alphabet.