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Lucky Star Game Show for SMART boards

What it is: Cyberchase is an animated math series on PBS Kids. Now, Cyberchase is making math even more fun with an interactive game show called Lucky Star.  The game show is a free download for the SMART Notebook software. Lucky Star was designed for kids in 3rd-5th grade.  The game show has kids competing for top scores while building important math skills.  Lucky Star has 150 questions that focus on problem solving, algebraic thinking, number and operations, geometry, measurement, and more.  The game show includes an on-screen think pad (a drop down area where students can work the problems with the pen.  The game show also includes some great virtual manipulatives that students can interact with on the interactive whiteboard.  Want more? Create your own questions tailored to your curriculum using the Cyberchase characters and props.  You can customize the game for your students needs. How to integrate Lucky Star into your curriculum: Lucky Star is a fun way for your students to practice math. The ability to create your own questions that are tailored to your math curriculum means that this is game can be used all year. The game show makes for a great math warm up to get those brains thinking math.  Use Lucky Star as a fun class competition, split your students into teams for a little friendly math competition.  Your students will love the game show feel that Lucky Star has.  Any time I play games with my whole class, I really play it up.  Act the part of Game Show host and get into the game with your students.   Hold weekly competitions or semester long competitions to see who can get the top score.  Hold a fun math themed party for all of the “contestants” at the end of the competition.  When I taught second grade this meant bringing out all of the kids favorite math games and calling them by their class number all day instead of their names.  To mix it up, I might call on student number 10 by saying “I need 5+5 to line up third in line”.  It was a fun way to have fun with math and celebrate the hard work of all of my students. Tips: I couldn’t get the Lucky Star Game Show download to open in ActivInspire (for Promethean) even using the Smart Notebook option.  I also couldn’t get the download to open in SMART Notebook’s interactive viewer. If anyone has a trick or luck with either of these let me know and I’ll update the post accordingly! Please leave a comment and share how you are using Lucky Star in your classroom!

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Draw a Stickman has a new episode!

Posted by admin | Posted in Create, inspiration, Interactive book, Interactive Whiteboard, iPod, Language Arts, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Secondary Elementary, Websites | Posted on 16-03-2012

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What it is:  Draw a Stickman is a fun little site that I wrote about last year here.  They have a brand new episode of our little stickman friend!  For those of you who haven’t seen it (or don’t remember), Draw a Stickman is a delightful place for kids to be creative, read, imagine and draw.  Students are given sets of directions that they must complete to help out the hero of the story, a stickman figure that they created.  Everything that they draw comes to life and interacts with the rest of what is on the screen.  Brilliant!  These mini interactive stories that have students reading and following directions, solving mysteries, thinking creatively and solving problems. The new episode is just as charming as the last!

How to integrate Draw a Stickman into the classroom:Draw a Stickman is a fun interactive site that uses student creations to tell a story.  Students can complete the interactive on individual computers, iDevices (the site works great!), interactive whiteboards, or classroom computers.

Aside from just fun practice at following instructions, Draw a Stickman would be a great fictional story prompt.  Students have the bones of a story and can fill in details, vivid verbs, adjectives, etc. to tell the story.  Students can focus on fleshing out their hero, the plot of the story, the details, the setting, etc.  Students can come up with a moral of a story that they add in the customized ending.  This link can be sent as a tweet, facebook link, or in an email to accompany the story they have created.  These stories would be fun to share as a class…how many different stories did students come up with using the same base?

On an interactive whiteboard, students can go through the story together, labeling the different parts of the story (beginning, problem, climax, resolution, ending).  This interactive can help students identify parts in a story including setting, characters and plot.

Tips: After you have gone through Draw a Stickman, you can personalize the message at the end and share.  Add any two lines of text that you wish.  This could be a fun way to reveal messages to your students!
Draw a Stickman is also in the App store on iTunes!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ClassConnect in  your classroom!

Comments (2)

Lisa M said on 17-03-2012

We loved Episode 1! Thanks for letting me know there is another Episode. Posting it on Edmodo right now!:)
Robin said on 03-07-2012

Just wanted to let you know that this company has recently launched a kickstarter campaign for the new Draw A Stickman project, if you’d like to take a look! Check out the video that shows the new game play!

Just go to kickstarter and then search Draw a Stickman. Feel free to share!

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