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Kidopo

What it is: Kidopo is an online coloring application where kids can color online coloring books.  The application simulates a real coloring experience (in other words you can color outside the lines and the more you color over a spot, the darker it gets.). There are a lot of coloring pages to choose from with categories like animals, cars and transportation, cartoons, food, toys, holidays, learning, circus, sports, music, nature, occupation, seasons, and more.  Kidopo has fun printables for the classroom including coloring sheets, bookmarks, birthday printables, awards and certificates, mazes, writing paper, connect the dots, room decorations, and stickers.  You will find a collection of flash games for kids including brain games, card/board games, math games, memory games, puzzle games, science games, and word games.  In the craft section of the website are videos that walk students step by step through a craft. How to integrate Kidopo into your curriculum: The online coloring book on Kidopo is a great way to help primary students practice mouse manipulation.  I like that you can color inside or outside of the lines just like in a real coloring book.  If you are in a computer lab setting, the Kidopo coloring book is a fun way for students to practice, and a good way for you to gauge where their fine motor skills are. The printables on Kidopo are perfect for the classroom.  Bookmarks are always fun classroom give aways and the awards and certificates are a good way to recognize your students. The learning games on Kidopo make a good practice center activity on classroom computers.  My favorite are the math games that help students with fact recall through fun arcade-type games.   In the word games, you will find a fun game called Word Frenzy that will give your students a place to practice typing.  Check out the games, some are better than others but they are definitely worth a look! Tips: One of the downfalls of Kidopo are the advertisements in the sidebar and introducing the games.  I use websites with this type of advertising to teach my students about how to spot ads and discuss with them why ads are placed on websites. Please leave a comment and share how you are using Kidopo in your classroom!

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Discovery’s Make a Quake

Posted by admin | Posted in History, Interactive Whiteboard, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Websites | Posted on 21-01-2010

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What it is: Our fifth graders are going to be reading stories about extreme nature next week.  To build background knowledge about extreme nature, I was on a hunt for some sites that would teach them about different natural occurrences and include an interactive where they could explore the occurrence first hand.  Discovery has an nice interactive on earthquakes called Make a Quake.  Students are able to create their own earthquake in a virtual simulator.  Students enter a simulator that lets them choose the kind of ground that their building is built on, the preventative measures that have been put in place, and the magnitude of the earthquake.  Then they begin the quake to test out different scenarios.


How to integrate Discovery’s Make a Quake into the classroom: This is a great site to help students understand how different factors determine the impact of an earthquake.  Allow students to explore this interactive individually on classroom computers or in a computer lab setting.  Encourage them to take notes about what combination causes the most damage and which combination causes the least damage.  You could also complete this simulation as a class using an interactive whiteboard or a projector.  Invite students up to adjust the different factors (ground, prevention, magnitude).  Ask students to make predictions about what will happen to their building. Begin the quake to test their hypothesis.


Tips: Students can learn more about past earthquakes by learning more about 1906: The Great Quake Cover-Up and view a photo gallery of earthquake destruction.


Leave a comment and share how you are using Discovery’s Make a Quake  in your classroom.

Comments (2)

Tweets that mention iLearn Technology » Blog Archive » Discovery’s Make a Quake -- Topsy.com said on 22-01-2010

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skip Zalneraitis, Kelli Trainer. Kelli Trainer said: My 8yo engineer-type learners are inspired to improve earthquake-proof design in response to #Haiti. Timely IWB post at http://bit.ly/8rLQDW [...]
Suzanne Whitlow said on 22-01-2010

Wow, hands on learning at its best. Love this link. Thank you.

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