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Emerald Island

  What it is: Emerald Island is a great place for kids to play and learn more about the earth and ways that they can help the earth, perfect for Earth Day!  Emerald Island is a virtual world created specifically for kids (6-12).  Students can pioneer, prevail over, and protect the Island.  Emerald Island is more than just a game, it is a story that students take part in.  The students job is to help Tamino (the hero) to save Emerald Island (a green island) from Pirats (pirate rats).  Each player plants seeds and cultivates gardens to replenish Emerald Island.  Emerald Island helps students to learn about and experience important contributions that are part of an interconnected world.  It provides young students with a sense of community and a beginning understanding of a global society.  Students begin to build knowledge, empathy, and appreciation for an environment that emulates earth.  While playing, students are empowered to make a difference and become true eco-heroes as they take on challenges to save the world.  Along the way students meet other citizens of Emerald Island, many of whom give students tips about how they can save energy and be more responsible citizens. How to integrate Emerald Island into the classroom:   Emerald Island is a great game for students to play throughout the month of April as they learn about Earth Day and how to become more earth-conscious citizens.  I love how Emerald Island involves students in a story and a quest to save a planet.  On the way they learn about how they can be better citizens of our planet with helpful tips from the Emerald Island citizens.  The games and activities help students to develop problem solving, reasoning, social, and computer skills.   Emerald Island can be played as a whole class exploring and reading clues together with an interactive whiteboard or individually in a computer lab setting. You can expand on what students are learning in Emerald Island by keeping a class notebook of green tips that students learn in Emerald Island.   Tips:  Emerald Island provides an outstanding introduction to registering for a website, it is easy enough to use with young students and reinforces Internet safety rules before the game begins.   Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Emerald Island in your classroom.

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Math Doodles

Posted by admin | Posted in Fun & Games, Interactive Whiteboard, Math, Primary Elementary, Secondary Elementary, Websites | Posted on 23-02-2009

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What it is:  Math Doodles is a set of math games created by Daren Carstens that help students learn the most important aspect of math…it can be fun!  Daren created Math Doodles as a place where students can “discover the joy, wonder, and fun of mathematics.”  I have to admit that I would not have classified math as a “fun” subject.  However, I think that math can and should be a fun time of exploration and learning for students.  Math Doodles provides this place.  Kids can interact with math by playing games like Connect the Sums, Number Jump, Polyomino Shift, Double Traits, Sums Stacker, Hydro Maze, Time Shuffle, and Angel Fish (coming soon).  These games encourage students to interact with math and learning….and they are a lot of fun too!

How to integrate Math Doodles into the classroom:   Math Doodles is a collection of amazing games for elementary school students.  Students will learn through play (the best way!)  Math Doodles would be an excellent math center in the one or two computer classroom.  Students could play the games in teams or individually.  In the lab setting students could work on skills specific to their individual learning needs in the math classroom.  Math Doodles could also be used with an interactive whiteboard for whole class participation.  Split your class into teams and take turns solving the games.  Math Doodles games would be a fun way to start math class as a pre-thinking activity.  

 

Tips:  Right now Math Doodles games are only available in Demo version (since this version is free to use that suits me well!), but it looks like eventually the full version of each game will be available for purchase. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Math Doodles  in your classroom.

Comments (5)

Mike Summers said on 23-02-2009

This resource is extraordinarily helpful. I am general counsel for a Chicago-based IT firm and lead our education technology department. Like you, my background is not in technology, but I have, through an odd an organic process, come to embrace the transformative power of technology when its use is well planned and properly integrated into our curriculum and classrooms. I have written a few white papers and I am now working on a framework for successful technology integration. But it’s strange. I’m fairly new to blogging/social networking and the more I think I know, the more I find out I don’t know. The amazing (and daunting) thing about our Web 2.0 world is both the accessibility and the almost overwhelming abundance of data. Collecting it, synthesizing it, organizing it, discerning fact from fiction, can be a full time job in and of itself.

Anyway…..the kind of practical, hands-on, user friendly applications you highlight here are of great interest. I will follow your blog, but I would also enjoy the opportunity to correspond with you about integration strategies, what you use in your classroom (and why), and ideas you have about getting teachers (and districts) to embrace the promise of technology. (One step at a time).

For more info about me, I have a blog (such that it is) at smart1to1.blogspot.com.

Thanks!

Mike Summers
http://www.smart1to1.blogspot.com
Email: lawsummers@aol.com
Liggy Blough said on 25-02-2009

Thanks for sharing this. I checked out the site to see if it might provide some fun learning exercises for my Kindergartener. I had her try it to see if she would enjoy it. It was a little advanced for her but she did have fun “playing” it with trial and error. She even got a few right after a number of tries. I’ve bookmarked the site so that I can come back to it during the summertime. Hopefully the site will still be up at that time. That would make some fun math learning for her during the summer.
Megan said on 29-03-2009

This sounds like a good program to help younger students gain a love for math and see how fun it can be. I am a college student who is currently investigating ways to integrate technology into elementary math classrooms. For those of you who have had children use this game, what specific technology skills do you think a child could gain from this experience?
Trace said on 10-03-2010

How can I get a hold of Doodles for math?
admin said on 10-03-2010

Hi Trace, I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to get a hold of Math Doodles.

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