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Kid Thing

  What it is:   I could have sworn that I had written a post about Kid Thing in the past, but after running several searches on my posts, I came up empty.  Kid Thing is a secure digital media player for kids in grades k-4.  Kid Thing accesses the Internet but is not a web browser.  It is more like an iTunes type environment designed specifically for kids.  There are no advertisements on Kid Thing and because it is not a web browser, there is no place to type a web address where students could inadvertently stumble on inappropriate content.  The Kid Thing player is free to download and they often have free downloads of learning and interactive activities for students.  There is also a Kid Thing store where additional books, videos, games, and creative arts can be downloaded to the Kid Thing player.  Everything in the store is very reasonably priced.  Right now Kid Thing is offering a free download in addition to the player, a 25 day Countdown to Christmas.  Each day students will get to open a new kid thing Surprise with a game to play.  After the game has been opened, it will stay on the Kid Thing player to be played over and over again.     How to integrate Kid Thing into the classroom:   The Kid Thing player would make an excellent reading center, or learning center for phonics, language arts, and math.  The player is very user friendly for students.  Start each morning with the free Countdown for Christmas, let each student have a turn to be the one to open the Countdown for Christmas surprise.  Throughout the day, let students visit the Kid Thing center to complete the new activity for the day.  Kid Thing is great for the one or two classroom computers, a computer lab, a projector or interactive whiteboard, and for home use.  Encourage parents to download Kid Thing at home and add books and games that are appropriate for their child.   Tips:   At the moment Kid Thing only runs on PC’s running Window’s XP and Vista.  There is a Mac version in the works (hooray!!) and if you visit the download page you can sign up to be the first to know when the Mac version is available.     Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Kid Thing in your classroom.

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The Scale of Life

Posted by admin | Posted in Analyze, Interactive Whiteboard, Math, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Understand (describe, explain), Websites | Posted on 19-04-2012

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What it is:  The Scale of Life is a neat website that I learned about from a parent in @michellek107‘s class today.  The Scale of Life is flash based, and shows the size of objects relative to other objects.  Along the bottom of the site is a slider that lets students zoom in or out in size to see things relative to each other. Students can get as small as 0.0000000001 yoctometers to as large as size of the known universe.

How to integrate The Scale of Life into the classroom:  The Scale of Life is a neat way for students to explore size, science and math.  Students can examine the scale of objects compared to other objects and make observations about size and purpose of the object in the universe.  This would be a fun site to explore as a class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.  As a class, students could adjust the scale and discuss size and purpose of the objects.  Split students into teams to choose a different scale to learn about. Students can learn more about the items that are in the size range to share back with the class.

The Scale of Life could be a fantastic site for students learning about exponents and scientific notation.  Visual students will appreciate that they can see what these big (and small) numbers are representing.

Tips: @michellek107 is digging the music on the site…she has it going in the background of her classroom right now ;) .  If you aren’t loving it, there is a music note in the upper right corner where you can turn it off.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Scale of Life in  your classroom!

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