Newsela

It’s the end of the year, the very end of my time permanent substituting, and it feels like we’re just killing time.   Early this morning I printed off a whole bunch of geography worksheets to keep them busy. There was some value to them, but really, I needed a time-filler.

But this morning during silent reading, I was exploring The Hive Society blog, when I found the new site they use- Newsela. And holy moly, I love it.

So all of my plans changed, and while half of our class finished their writers’ workshop projects, I got the other half started on Newsela. I downloaded my free pro trial, and assigned my class three articles, which covered three events we had been talking about during morning meeting throughout the past two weeks.  (most students chose to read this article about the Amtrak crash first.)  Each article has a short quiz and response at the end, and the results are sent directly to me.

Once all of the kids were engaged in their work, the room became beautifully silent.  They were reading and thinking critically, and I was getting updates every time they submitted a comment or quiz.  The kids were so into this, and they told me I should definitely use this website with my class next year.

Check it out. We are all about Newsela.