The friendly letter is a ubiquitous elementary project, but without a meaningful context it often ends up as a rote exercise in following formatting rules. With the advent of digital tools and social media, the rules for formatting a friendly letter writing are also changing. While many bemoan this change, digital tools also made it easier to both edit writing, add visuals and voice, and share immediately with an audience beyond the classroom.

Read More

Students in first grade are learning more about subtraction and addition, place value, and geometric shapes. They are ready to build foundations for understanding how to subtract and add numbers, measure lengths as units, and classify shapes.

Wixie's curriculum library includes a range of math-focused templates you can use for formative assessment purposes or to support student thinking as they use virtual manipulatives and a blank canvas to construct understanding.

Teachers can assign Wixie templates directly to students, or customize templates to differentiate them for specific learners in their classroom. Instructions for students show in the Wixie interface and you can ask students to record their voice to explain their mathematical thinking.

Read More

Designed by teachers and educators at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, the 6+1 Trait® Writing Model of Instruction & Assessment organizes writing skills into seven “traits” that provide a common language for writing instruction.

The traits are:

1. Ideas
2. Organization
3. Voice
4. Word Choice
5. Sentence Fluency
6. Conventions
7. Presentation

Using these traits can help students see techniques of great writing, as well as take action to build specific skills that improve their writing.

Here are ways you can use Wixie to help students practice and support skills building for each of the traits.

Read More

Third grade students work on developing an understanding of multiplication, division, and fractions. They are also beginning to grasp the properties of different geometric structures and how to analyze two-dimensional shapes.

Wixie's Templates library includes over 40 templates you can use for formative assessment purposes or as performance tasks your 3rd-grade learners can complete independently or in station rotations.

Teachers can assign Wixie activities directly to students, or customize to differentiate them for specific learners in their classroom. Instructions for students show in the Wixie interface to help them begin to work independently.

Read More

Did you know that if your child is using Wixie at school, they can also log in at home? Wixie provides many ways to bring learning home, while avoiding worksheet, or workbook, style activities. 

In the classroom, students use Wixie to combine text, images, voice narration and original artwork to write stories and show what they know for a range of projects. But when Wixie opens to a blank screen at home, many parents (although not many kids), can be intimidated by that white page! 

Here are some ideas to help you and your child get started using Wixie at home. 

Read More