How much do I love Wordle?  A lot!  A whole lot!  Wordle is a very cool tool that is free to use.  You enter a bunch of words and it creates a graphic for you.  The size of the words in the graphic depends on how often they appear in the group.  So, I put in all the counties names, added the word “Counties” three times and the word “California” five times.  Voila.  You can adjust the layout, color, and orientation of the words until you are happy with it.  Because the output is not a graphic, you’ll need to use a screen capture to get your graphic to use on the web or other places.

After teaching 5th grade last year, I was used to tons of resources for teaching about the US States and US History.  This year, I’m teaching California history and geography.  There are not nearly as many resources available.  So, cool tools like this . . . they work!

Feel free to use this graphic if it would be helpful to you.  If you click on the graphic, you’ll be taken to Flickr where there is a larger version available.  Please make it clear it’s created by Wordle when you share it.