Tag: fun

Animalia

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Animalia3417 views

 

What it is: The Animalia website is based on the popular book and television series written and illustrated by Graeme Base. The website is just as impressive as the book with amazing illustrations and activities for students.  On the Animalia website, students are introduced to the characters of Animalia, the goal of the Animalia site, Animalia news, and games and activities.  The Animalia site brings students on a wonderful adventure where their goal is to collect all of the “core spores” to restore the Core of Animalia.  Students collect the core spores by going on several adventures where they will play learning games, discover, and follow directions.  Games and activities include logic puzzles, memory skills, code cracking, map reading, and listening skills.  The listening game is called Toucan Talk (which I learned about on Larry Ferrazlo’s blog) and  asks students to listen to a message in the wrong order, and change the order of words or sounds so that the message makes sense.  The site is extremely interactive.  Students will love becoming part of the adventure.

 

How to integrate Animalia into the classroom:   Animalia is like a giant online scavenger hunt where students solve problems to advance in the game.  This site would be a great one to use to teach following written and oral directions, logical thinking, and problem solving skills.  These aren’t skills that we generally focus on in isolation but the Animalia site does a wonderful job of weaving a story around a problem and inviting students along on an adventure to solve the problem.  Because students are problem solving, this would be an excellent site for students to work on collaboratively as a team.  Students can be split into teams to see who can collect all of the “core spores” first through problem solving.  What I love about watching my students interact with each other on this site, is the way that one team would solve a problem and then teach another team how they did it.  Nothing better than kids teaching kids!  For younger students, the game could be completed as a whole class with a projector or interactive whiteboard.  The clues and games will have to be more teacher directed but your students will quickly catch on and be ready to play!

 

Tips:   This site is highly interactive including video clips, highly interactive games, and sounds.  You will need a high speed connection for this site.  Bring on the bandwidth!

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

Build Your Wild Self

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Build Your Wild Self2776 views

 

What it is:  Build Your Wild Self is a website I heard about on A Geeky Momma’s blog (which I thoroughly enjoy!).  The site fits perfectly into my classroom this week as our Book Fair theme this year is “Safari”.   The site, created by the New York Zoos and Aquarium, lets students create a character called their “Wild Self”.  Students can choose a character and then add crazy hair, arms, legs, etc. to make them wild. There are even fun sound effects for the different backgrounds they add! 

 

How to integrate Build Your Wild Self into the classroom:   This would be a great site to use with students after reading a book like “Where the Wild Things Are”.  Students could create their own Wild Things and write themselves a Wild Things story featuring themselves.  This is also a great site to use with kindergarten and first grade students who are learning about different animals.  As they build their Wild Self they can name what animal the crazy part belongs to.  Older elementary students also enjoy working on this website, my students created a wild self for their safari passports for our book fair this week and really enjoyed it from kindergarten through fifth grade.

 

Tips:   The Wild Self can be printed out, sent to a friend, or saved as a desktop.  

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Build Your Wild Self in your classroom.

Toy Maker

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Toy Maker2191 views

 

What it is: Toy Maker is a website full of free paper toy downloads.  While it isn’t directly using technology in the classroom, this is a great site to visit for the free downloads.  Toy Maker has everything from paper animals (origami type), to awesome math and learning toys, to toys that move, and gift boxes.  This site offers really amazing downloads and teaches students how to follow step by step instructions to create their toy. 

 

How to integrate Toy Maker into the classroom:   The math and learning toys on the Toy Maker site are perfect for integrating into your existing curriculum.  Living in Colorado means a lot of indoor recess days in the winter months, these toys offer excellent activities for those indoor days!  The gift boxes are perfect for holiday gifts home (Christmas, Mother’s day, Father’s day, etc.) or for exchanging with learning buddies.   Younger students will enjoy creating one of the animals and writing a story to accompany it.

 

Tips: Share this site with parents, they will love these printables for rainy days at home!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Toy Maker  in your classroom.

Shidonni

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Shidonni6386 views

What it is:  Shidonni is a really intriguing new web application for kids.  Shidonni is an imaginary world that kids create.  It provides a virtual universe where kids can create their own imaginary world, play, and share games and interact with each other in a safe environment online.  Kids can create their own animals or characters online and make them interactive.  Their characters actually move and interact with the kids (no programming required!).  They can create a world for their character, feed their character, and play games using their character.  Watch the video on the Shidonni website for a good idea of how the program works.  

 

How to integrate Shidonni into the classroom:  Shidonni is an amazing way for kids to express themselves creatively.  They will LOVE the interaction that this site provides.  I am really in awe of this site and its capabilities.  The site is simple enough for kindergarten students to use but will keep even 5th grade students intrigued.  For classroom use the site is a great way to let younger students practice interaction with the computer and mouse manipulation.  It is also a great introduction to drawing programs.  Students can use Shidonni as a place to start digital storytelling.  They can use the site to illustrate stories that they are creating in writing class.  Shidonni can also be used to create “living” dioramas for the classroom.  This is a great place for students to learn by trial and error.  I like to introduce programs like this and then let students teach themselves how to use new technology through exploration.  

 

Tips:  Shidonni requires that you download a plugin for your Internet browser.  Be sure to do this on all computers before you roll it out for the first time in class. 🙂

 

 

Leave a comment and share how you are using Shidonni in your classroom.

Creative Park

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Creative Park2390 views

 

What it is: Creative Park is a great free creative resource library for teachers and students.  Creativity is such an important part of child development but also an important aspect of 21st century learning and thinking.  Creative Park offers teachers and students awesome resources for putting that creativity to use.  The website offers ideas and templates that can be coupled with your lesson plans.  Projects range from 3-D paper crafts (like airplanes, the Great Pyramids, a globe, dinosaurs, and the Leaning Tower of Piza, etc.)  There are great special collections including an Architecture museum, circus land, and science museum.  Creative Park also features calendars, art crafts, a digital photo gallery, and scrapbook area.

How to integrate Creative Park into the classroom:  Lets face it, teachers don’t have the largest budgets in the world to buy manipulatives and learning displays.  Creative Park can help ease some of this burden by giving you free high quality paper crafts that your students can assemble.  I love that this taps into following directions and creativity for students.  Students can use these materials to make class dioramas or displays.  This is also a great stop for those indoor recess days.  Keep your kids busy creating when they have to be cooped up inside.  Use the scrapbook pages to create custom class memory books.  Each student can create their own as a keepsake for the end of the year (my students LOVE their memory books each year).  The greeting section is wonderful for elementary teachers who are in charge of covering every holiday and making sure that mom and dad get a card from their child.  Many of the materials available on this site would be perfect for bulletin boards.  The creative activities would also liven up classroom parties.  This is a fun site to sit and explore!


Tips:  Stock your printer up with paper and ink for these projects.  

 

Leave a comment and share how you are using Creative Park for your classroom.   

 

Lite-Brite

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Lite-Brite3648 views

 

What it is: Some websites just make you smile. Lite-Brite is one of those sites for me, I am a child of the 80’s so the Lite-Brite holds a special place in my heart! The site is exactly what you would expect, an online version of Lite-Brite. No fancy moving flash animations, sound effects, etc. Just 9 different color pegs to choose from and a Lite-Brite board.

 

How to integrate Lite-Brite into the classroom: Lite Brite may not appear to have much educational value upon first inspection, but being that I love Lite-Brite, I knew there had to be a way to use it in the classroom. In the primary and secondary classroom, the Lite-Brite would be a great place for students to practice “writing” their spelling words using the colored pegs. Any time you can give students a new medium for practicing spelling words or math facts, it is a good thing. Write out math problems using the Lite-Brite and students can take turns solving the facts. Create a class picture using an interactive whiteboard. Keep points on the Lite-Brite when playing a class game. I think even older kids could appreciate the Lite-Brite from an art perspective. It just gives one more medium for students to express themselves. I have yet to find a kid who uses the Lite-Brite site and doesn’t leave with a smile 🙂 Kindergarten students can practice “writing” the alphabet by forming letters with the colored pegs.


Tips: The Lite-Brite site doesn’t have a save option so make sure that for the true creations, you have a printer hooked up to memorialize them.


Please leave a comment and share how you are using Lite Brite in your classroom.

Statetris

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Statetris2509 views

 

What it is:  Statetris brings one of my all time favorite Nintendo games into the education realm.  Statetris mixes aspects of the game Tetris and geography.  Instead of positioning typical Tetris blocks, students position states or countries to their proper location.  There are 3 levels to play Statetris.  The easiest level gives students the shape and name of the state or country.  The medium level gives the students the state or country that rotates with the name of the state or country.  The hardest level gives students the sate or country rotating without a label.  The medium and hard levels can be very difficult because you get a state or country that isn’t straight up and down but may be rotated. Students can play Statetris with a map of the United States, Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, and UK.  

How to integrate Statetris into the classroom:  Statetris is a great place for students to learn and practice geography.  The familiar game platform is popular with students and will be a fun way to memorize geography locations.  This is the perfect place for students to study before a geography test.  

Tips:  Save this site in your bookmark bar for easy access.  This is a great site for kids to visit when they complete work early and are looking for extension activities. 

 

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Statetris in your classroom.

 

Kindle Lab

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Kindle Lab2664 views

What it is: Carrying on with the interactive whiteboard awesomeness, here is free interactive whiteboard software for your Wiimote Whiteboard. If you have a Mimio, e-beam, Smartboard, Active Board, or Promethean, this software will also work with them! Kindle Lab will run on both PC and Mac. Now, I could give you a long explanation of everything that Kindle Lab can do but I am of the mindset that a picture (or in this case video) is worth a thousand words and can do a much better job of it than I can….

 

 

How to integrate Kindle Lab into your curriculum: Kindle Lab is meant to be used to enhance all of your existing curriculum. No matter what subject you are teaching Kindle Lab, along with your Interactive Whiteboard, can bring the lesson to life for your students. The range and scope of what Kindle Lab can do for your classroom is so broad and all encompassing that for me to give you some ideas here would really be silly. Download Kindle Lab, the PDF of the Kindle Lab tools and start exploring. I promise it will be pretty apparent to you how seamlessly this could be used for any subject at any level. So cool!

Tips: At the end of the video clip above, you may have noticed another tool which is called Eduism. This is a 3-D interactive environment that was created for the classroom. It is also a free to use open source project that is meant to be used with the Interactive Whiteboards. Be sure to check it out!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Kindle Lab in your classroom.

Typing Web

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Typing Web3799 views

 

What it is: Typing Web is an awesome website I ran across yesterday. It is a free to use typing tutor, tester, and also includes games. Typing Web tracks students progress and provides a place for them to practice their most frequently mis-typed letters. Students can personalize their Typing Web site by choosing a “skin” to decorate the typing practice page. I don’t know about you, but as soon as my students can personalize anything they are hooked! The web based software makes it possible for students to practice typing from anywhere they have an Internet connected computer. There is also a NEW free iPhone or iPod Touch Typing Tutor for those that are so lucky 🙂 .

How to integrate Typing Web into your curriculum: Typing Web is best used in a computer lab setting where students can have blocks of time set aside for typing practice. You can also set up a practice center in your classroom where students can take turns practicing their typing skills. Because Typing Web is web based students can practice at home too!

Tips: Typing web has a school version where teachers have more control over the individual student set up as well as data collection. The school version is subscription based.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Typing Web in your classroom.

Big Huge Labs: Magazine

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What it is: Big Huge Labs: Magazine is an online magazine cover creator. Students can create custom magazine covers from photos on Flickr or photos uploaded from the computer.

How to integrate Big Huge Labs: Magazine into the classroom: This would be a great tie-in to a persuasive writing unit. Discuss with students why magazine covers need to be persuasive. Students can create a custom cover for a multitude of projects. This might be a fun Mother’s day/Father’s day gift as well!

Tips: Set up a class Flickr account and link to Big Huge Labs for easy access for your students.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Big Huge Labs: Magazines in your classroom.