Widgit Online is a super easy-to-use webtool for creating visuals and picture supported materials -- just type and the pictures pop-up! You can even copy and paste text in.
These symbolized Holiday resources celebrate diversity and the Widgit symbols help make new vocabulary sticky and easy to learn. For an early years classroom and free for download are popular songs for Christmas and Hanukkah (yes we are late.... SORRY! but we wanted to share anyway so you’ll have for next year) and an article about Kwanzaa.
With Widgit Online educators can easily create recipes, nametags, labels, visual schedules, introduce new vocabulary in invitations and more. Dozens of included templates make it quick and easy. You can signup here for a 21 day free trial for Widgit Online.
We were really excited as we put these together, seeing just how vast Widgit's symbol library is. Widgit has a range of symbols for religious vocabulary from the Menorah to the Virgin Mary.
Whenever there wasn't a symbol available, like for the word "Latkes" in our Hannukkah resources, we easily imported an image from the web to use right in our document.
Symbolizing - Pro Tips
When putting together your own symbolized resources in Widgit, keep these tips in mind.
You Don't have to symbolize every word. You can leave words like is, as, in, the, and, without symbols. Too many symbols can crowd the page and confuse. Symbolize key words to convey meaning and support new/difficult vocabulary. But if new vocabulary is small words that are easily confused -- prepositions, articles etc. -- than symbolizing might be appropriate.
Swap symbols to improve meaning. Sometimes, the symbols associated with words don't quite make sense in the context of what you're writing about. For example, in the Silent Night song, there's a line that says "Holy infant so tender and mild". The symbol that's associated with the word "mild" doesn't fit with the abstract meaning suggested in the song - quiet, and peaceful.
Sign up to Widgit Online for as little as $9 per month or $90 for an entire year. Download the free sample materials today and try your 21 day free trial for Widgit Online.
