The Mavens’ Word of the Day
"Random House’s Mavens tackle the etymology (history and origins) of words and idioms in this daily column for high-schoolers and adults. On the question of whether "Wassup?" is a word or a contraction, Maven Enid responds "There’s a better label for this kind of word, and this one gives us some insight into how a term like this comes to exist. We call it a "pronunciation spelling," which is a put-together spelling intended to express normal, casual, continuous, rapid speech. Some of these spellings, like "gonna," "gotta," and "lemme," have become frequent enough and conventionalized enough to have found a place in dictionaries.""
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Take SAT
A Surfnetkids Honorable Mention site.
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Syndicate.com
"This monthly contest (with prizes) consists of five original vocabulary-building games. Rooty*Hoot*Hoot and Word Web develop knowledge of Latin and Greek word roots. Word Wave and SynOpps are games based on synonyms and antonyms. Word Orgees is an analogy game. "Symphony" is to "Composer" as "Baby" is to "Mother". Submit your answers via email, and receive the answer key by return email."
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Surfing the Net with Kids: Daily Words
"It used to be that only the newspaper was delivered daily. Now, a popular Internet genre is "... of the Day." This week I’ve chosen five sites that feature a daily word activity. I’ve found daily word definitions, idioms, word games and quotations. When visiting a site daily, you might find your Web browser serving you yesterday’s page (from its memory or cache) instead of today’s updated page. If this happens, use the reload button to force your browser to retrieve the current page."
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Surfing the Net with Kids: Daily Vocabulary Activities
"It used to be that only the newspaper was daily, but now you can get a daily serving of vocabulary-building word activities on the Web, in your e-mailbox, or even on your pager or cell phone. Today’s sites feature a new word, idiom, word game or quotation every day."
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Surfing the Net with Kids: Learning Spanish Verbs
"Spanish verbs always end in either "-ar," "-er," or "-ir." And when they are good, they are very, very good, for they follow the rules and are easy to conjugate. But when they are bad, they are horrid — and you just need to grit your teeth and memorize them. I found these sites to be quite helpful for both learning and practicing the conjugation of Spanish verbs. Vámonos! Vamos al Internet."
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Surfing the Net with Kids: Sign Language
"American Sign Language is a rich language of gestures and hand symbols. Each gesture represents either a concept, a word or a letter. In those cases where a gesture doesn’t exist for a particular idea, a word can be spelled out, letter by letter, using finger spelling. Want to learn some sign language? Better than a printed book, the following sites use animation and movies to illustrate the many subtleties of signing."
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Surfing the Net with Kids: SAT Vocabulary
"The best way to increase one’s vocabulary is to read voraciously. But if you have a particular set of words you want to learn (perhaps with an eye on increasing your verbal score on college entrance exams) these fives sites make fun out of learning words commonly found on the SAT, ACT and GRE. "
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Surfing the Net with Kids: Word Games
"I’ve always enjoyed word games and I have fond childhood memories of playing them with my parents. Now it is my turn to pass on my love of words to my kids, and board games aren’t the only games in town anymore. Here is a sampling of Web word games that take advantage of the Internet’s interactive nature."
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Study Hall Mystery Novela
"You SENILE DOTARD! Dr. Clark grumbled loudly to himself as he tripped over criss-crossing cords and hit his thigh on the corner of the desk . Still not HABITUATED to his new office, the old professor brushed back a few of the SPARSE wisps of gray hair from his round face and squinted as he PEERED through his thick eyeglasses trying to identify the AMORPHOUS shapes that he perceived." As you read this fourteen-chapter novella, you can click on any of the capitalized SAT vocab words to view their definition in a frame at the bottom of your browser window."
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