Wonderopolis may sounds like a place you would find in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory or Alice in Wonderland, but don’t worry, it is much closer than you think. I have started to use this amazing site with my older students who are working on listening comprehension, summarizing, context clues, and vocabulary. It is also a great source for non-fiction text. Wonderopolis is a website that has short articles about every topic under the sun and as we all know, having an engaging topic can sometimes be the most difficult thing to find. Ever wonder if all bubbles are round or what was the best thing before sliced bread? These are just a few of the MANY topics you can find on this site.
Some of the articles have short ( 2-3 minute ) videos that go with them. I tell my students that if we can get our work done for that session they may watch the video, it is a great motivator.
A nice feature of Wonderopolis is the vocabulary support. Several words in a passeage may be underlined in orange. If you hover your cursor over the word it will provide you with the definition. Sometimes the definitions are on a slightly higher lingusitic level, wording wise, than I would like but I just break down the meaning for my students in those cases.
Have you ever used Wonderopolis? What do you think of it?
2 Responses
Thanks for mentioning this site. I hadn’t heard of it before. I think the articles would be great to use for targeting a variety of skills.