....A Contribution from our
Teaching Ideas Directory...

Using Wordles for Classroom Polls

by Donna
(K-3 Teacher Resources)

I have been experimenting with www.wordle.net lately. Wow another great technology resource for the K-3 Classroom....

It does take a bit of practise so before using it with your kiddies have a good go at it first.

Basically it takes a group of words from your input and outputs a creative word cloud with the larger size words being used the most in your text.

You can then edit the layout, font and colour of your 'wordle'.

MY FAVOURITE WAY TO USE WORDLE to create little 'class polls'. For example a simple one would be - ask the class the question - What is Your Favourite Colour ? Brainstorm all the colours and write them down.

OK now, under supervision (great for a parent helper), (even better - use your IWB) start to 'create' a wordle at - ask each child to come to the computer and write in their favourite colour in the text part of the wordle.

Click ok to create the wordle and you will instantly see what colour is the most popular.
- here is an example we made up with our fictional 23 students each inputting their favourite colour (as you can see there were lots of girls in this class LOL).....

Sooooo many other ways to use this - favourite animals, hardest spelling words, how are you feeling today, what month is your birthday....

Also ideal for children's stories and reports, poems, spelling lists, brainstorming word lists and more...Here is an example of a wordle made with words from the Dolch Word Lists...



Just note when using spelling lists - you cannot count on wordle using all the words from your list - it seems to have a mind of its own in this department - but is still really worthwhile - I have been able to use it for my son's 15 word spelling list with great success....

All in all www.wordle.net is well worth taking a look at - please comment below with more uses for the K-3 classroom...Enjoy!