Word Clouds for Kids/D5 Comprehension strategy

I asked my students to read their book again.  This time they used a circle map to retell their story.  Once they had the circle map finished with words from the story that helped them retell the story and describe the character they were allowed to go out to the computer and create a word cloud.  Attached are some of the picture of the word clouds.  The kids were excited to get to use technology for this project.  It was our first time doing this and it did take some time.  Teacher alert:  Of course you should make sure that your computers, Ipads, technology device has the most up to date Java and Shock Player.  Many of the computers we were using did not have the updates.  I had about 5 computers that were updated so I had the kids stand in lines behind the working computers taking turns.  I'll make sure that the computers in my work area are updated before I do this again.  Otherwise, I would have had to sign them out, sign me in, update, sign out, and then have them sign in again.  The update takes about 5 to 10 minutes.  Not sure you want to use that much time.  Much easier to check them in advance.

http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm
This can be done as a rotation or as a whole group depending on the computers in your pod.


Here is a D5 strategy I've recently started.  It is called word cloud for kids.
Procedure:
1. Students read their book.
2. Students write (10 or more) single describing words of character (characteristics of character) and story
3. Go to website referenced above and type in the words.
4. Hit the enter button.
5. Print the results.
6. Students share out about their word clouds.
6. Turn in to the teacher.

Assessment: 
Student using describing words.
Student accurately depicting character.
Students being able to retell the story.