Featured Post

LEGO Smart Creativity Contest

What it is: LEGO Education is looking for 10,000 contestants for its 2010 LEGO Smart Creativity Contest.  You can sign your classroom up to participate from now to July 2010, challenging your students to be LEGO Smart.  When you sign up, you will receive a free LEGO Smart kit to use for the contest.  Beginning in August 2010, your students will be challenged with a variety of activities that will encourage them to think creatively. How to integrate LEGO Smart Creativity Contest into the classroom: Take a look at the activities from last year, there are math, geography, science, collaboration, and social studies projects.  The activities are all a lot of fun.  The contest is a fantastic way to get your students thinking outside the box, in new and creative ways, while working together to accomplish tasks.  Your students will be working collaboratively, solving problems, and creating solutions.  Students will be demonstrating their understanding of technology, math, engineering, science and math.  I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t enjoy LEGOs. Tips: For most of us, the contest won’t start until the next school year, sign up today and have some awesome activities ready for next year. Please leave a comment and share how you are using LEGO Smart Creativity Contest in your classroom.

Read More

The Hobby Shop

Posted by admin | Posted in Fun & Games, inspiration, Interactive Whiteboard, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Teacher Resources, Websites | Posted on 08-05-2009

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

2

What it is:  The Hobby Shop is an amazing interactive site where students can learn about science.  Students can learn about a compound microscope, dissecting microscope, catapults, chemistry, and rockets.  Each section of the hobby shop is completely interactive and has students discovering learning through virtual experimentation.  Students can look through microscopes, each step of the way they are taught how to do things like prepare petri dishes, and clean up properly afterward.  In the chemistry lab students can create an ingredient found in chalk, make a chemical used in photography, make liquids change colors, or test chemicals for electrical conductivity.  Students are led through each step of an experiment just as they would do it in an actual lab.  There is an interactive periodic table of elements that students can use to learn about different elements.  Students can create their own rocket in the rocket lab choosing the body, nose cone, and fins of a rocket and then test it out.  Students can also test out catapults with water balloons.

How to integrate Hobby Shop into the classroom: Hobby Shop is a wonderful place for students to experiment and interact with science in preparation for doing the experiment in class.  It is interactive enough to take the place of experiments where the science budget doesn’t allow for a class set of materials.  I am SO impressed with the way that this site leads students through each step of the process to complete an experiment.  Use this site with the whole class using an interactive whiteboard, invite students to come up to the board and conduct the experiment.  This site is also perfect for use as a science center in the one or two computer classroom or for individual use in a computer lab environment.  

 

Tips:  Check out the Teacher Resources for standard alingment, correlating worksheets, and other pdf files.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Hobby Shop in your classroom.

Comments (2)

Thoroughly enjoyed the rocket excercise! I am an associate director of a nonprofit dedicated to bringing technology into the classroom. Check out our website when you have a moment, and please consider becoming a member. I was pointed to your site from a member of the Education Consultants Community.

[...] The Hobby Shop [...]

Write a comment

*