Holy Resource Batman!

Despite then fact that I had a fantastic time in Amsterdam and reveled in a four day weekend, I found myself really looking forward to getting back into my regular daily routine and schedule. I love having fun, but it's also important that I eat well and exercise and those things seem to fall to the wayside when we travel. Because I try to eat healthfully most of the time normally, I really go haywire when I travel and just enjoy without any guilt. It's tough to return home though because I usually am not happy with how eating whatever I want makes me feel and I crave exercise and healthy food. Unfortunately, we arrived home from our trip on a Sunday, which meant the stores were closed, so the fridge remained empty until I was able to shop after school today. Because I shop several times a week here and the produce is so fresh (which means it spoils quickly), I tend to let the fridge empty out before we go away for a weekend. I was enamored with my cart full of healthy fruits and vegetables and I cannot wait to dig into a nice big green salad for dinner tonight. I started my day off with a little butt kicking from Jillian and that felt really good! Hopefully I will get a run in or hit the gym later as well. This week needs to be exercise in HIGH gear after all these goodies!

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Today I discovered a really great resource that I just have to share! Check it out! It's a visual picture dictionary! This is such a fantastic tool to use for language and vocabulary development. I always strive to have good visuals to use with my ELL students and this seems to really fit the bill. Along the left margin there are themes you can choose from, but you can also search a specific word and view images.

This site offers:

• 20,000 terms with contextual definitions,
  developed by terminology experts
• 6,000 full-color images of a wide variety of objects
  from all aspects of life

and you can:

FIND words organized around major subject fields, corresponding themes or individual objects.

SEARCH ideas to quickly locate words or consult pictures to read clear, up-to-date definitions.

VIEW thousands of highly realistic illustrations and detailed diagrams created by skilled graphic artists.

DISCOVER a visual world of information of immense scope and depth

When I taught first grade, we did a science unit on amphibians. We would always create a diagram that showed the different parts of the frog, so I searched "frog" to see what came up.

Check it out!

Next year in Kinder, we will study butterflies...

Aren't these amazing images? I am in love! I also use Boardmaker a lot in order to show images, yet those images are cartoons and not realistic pictures or photographs. There is so much potential for using this site and these great images!

http://visual.merriam-webster.com

Enjoy!

How could you use the Merriam Webster visual dictionary in your classroom?