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Emerald Island

April 20, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments1981 views

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.

World Math Day 2009

February 2, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3253 views

What it is: World Math Day is March 4, 2009! If you participated in World Math Day last year with the World Math Day website, you know how motivating and fun it was. If not, this is your year to join in the fun! Students play against other students in countries around the world in real time mental arithmetic games. Each game lasts for 60 seconds. Students can play as many games as they want to. When you sign up your class, you will choose the level of difficulty based on age and ability. World Math Day is best for students who are 5 to 18 years old (k-12!). There are even prizes awarded including student prizes, and school prizes for highest achievers. Registration for World Math Day is open (and free), your students can start practicing right now!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: World Math Day was one of the highlights of math class last year. The students who participated had a great time competing against other students from around the world. I have never seen students so excited to practice math facts and many asked, “can we do this at home too?” How often do you get students asking for more math practice at home?! Get your students excited about competing on March 4 and start practicing now. If you have one or two computers in the classroom you can set up a training center. Reserve a computer lab during math class to practice as a class. You can also split your class into teams of 3 to complete the 60 second games using a projector or interactive whiteboard. You will not believe how motivating this site is for students!

Tips: This is an amazing development, World Math Day 2009 is available on the iPhone and iPod Touch!!! Woot, woot! Students can join in the fun of the practice period and work on their skills against other students before the big day.

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

Science Museum: Launch Ball

January 16, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3480 views

What it is: Here is another one I found thanks to @kjarrett. Science Museum features a game called Launch ball. Students are given a series of challenges to get a ball from one point to another through an obstacle course. The trick is they have to build the obstacle course so that the ball naturally flows to the goal after dropping into the play zone.

How to integrate Science Museum Launch Ball into the classroom: This is a great puzzle/game site to use with your students to get them to approach problems creatively and work through solutions with trial and error. The game is addicting and will have your students solving problems and thinking logically about how different objects interact with one another. I love using these mind benders with students, they are elated when they solve a puzzle! Each time students complete a level, they will learn fun science facts. After your students have all of the levels down, they can create their own obstacle courses for other students to solve.

Tips: This is a great game to introduce in science class. I also love using this site with students on indoor recess days!

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

Fantastic Contraption

October 14, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1925 views

What it is: I love Twitter, not just for the ability to keep up with what everyone is doing at any given time during the day, but also because I learn about cool technology like Fantastic Contraption from my PLN (personal learning network). Fantastic Contraption is a fun online game/puzzle, that teaches kids some physics basics. Essentially students are trying to get a ball from one box to another using different tools to do so. The puzzles get increasingly difficult with obstacles between the boxes. This is an addicting puzzle and logic game!

How to integrate Fantastic Contraption into the classroom: Even if you are not teaching your students physics, Fantastic Contraption should definitely make an appearance in your classroom. Even students who have never had a physics class can play this game (3rd-12th grade) because knowledge of physics is not necessary to work out the puzzles. Students can figure out the puzzle through trial and error. What I love about the game is the way that it teaches students how it works through step by step directions on the first two logic puzzles. This is a great exercise to get your students thinking outside the box and using critical thinking and logic skills. Use Fantastic Contraption as a year long go to game for free time, snow days, and brain warm up before math or science. Your students will love this one!

Tips: If you aren’t currently using Twitter, join today and find some other educators to follow…you will get all kinds of great ideas for your classroom! Follow me at twitter.com/ktenkely.

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

Math manipulatives

October 13, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2440 views

What it is: I’m actually doing a two for one post today because both sites have a great math manipulative tool. The first is an online analog clock. Students can explore the clock by moving the hour and minute hands in five minute intervals, minute intervals, 15 minute intervals, and hour intervals. There is no associated game with the clock, it is simply a tool to help your students get familiar with the analog clock. The second site is all about rulers and measurement, The Ruler Game. The Ruler Game teaches students how to read a ruler. Students can also practice their ruler reading skills with this game. Students can practice reading the ruler in sixteenths of an inch, eighths, quarters, halves, and whole inches.

How to integrate Analog Clock and The Ruler Game into the classroom: The Analog clock site is a great one for students to visit when they are learning about the analog clock. In the computer lab or projector classroom, have the students interact with the clock and make observations about what happens as they click the different increments. Talk about the way the clock works as a class. Call out a time and have the students match the time called with the clock on their computer. If you have access to a projector, play as a whole class and have students come up one at a time to demonstrate different times as a class. Bookmark the Analog Clock on your classroom computers as a math help center. The Ruler Game is a great way to help students understand how to read a ruler. Use it individually in a computer lab setting or use it as a math center in the one or two computer classroom. In either setting, this game will have your students reading measurement in no time. They will love trying to beat the clock!

Tips: The ruler game is not compatible with some web browsers, test it on a student computer before using in class… no one likes introducing a cool new tool to students only to find out that it doesn’t work at school!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Analog Clock and The Ruler Game in your classroom.

Statetris

September 1, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2509 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.

Jigsaw Planet

August 20, 2008August 21, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment15461 views

What it is: Well, it is the first week of school which for me means that it is rules week. Every teacher has to go over the rules at some point and it is usually met by major groans from students. This year I approached rules week differently. I used an awesome site called Jigsaw Planet to turn my rules into jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw Planet is a site that makes it simple to create custom jigsaw puzzles. Just upload a jpeg image to the site, choose how many pieces you want, what shape you want the pieces to be and Jigsaw Planet does the rest. You instantly have a custom interactive puzzle for your students to play! The puzzles can be saved for your own account, shared with students via a url, or embedded into your classroom website for easy access.

How to integrate Jigsaw Planet into the classroom: Jigsaw Planet puzzles are AMAZING to use with an interactive whiteboard! Each puzzle is timed as you put it together, split students into teams to see which team can complete the puzzle the fastest. Instead of the typical PowerPoint type presentation to teach students facts, create a puzzle for them to put together and have them read the fact once the puzzle has been completed. Turn your classroom rules into a series of jigsaw puzzles for students to put together. Honor your star student of the week by creating a puzzle of that student, just take a picture of the student and upload to Jigsaw Planet. Put the puzzle of the student on your classroom website to honor them. Students can use Jigsaw Planet to create their own puzzles. This is a great place for them to study, they can upload spelling words, math facts, maps, etc. Students will love creating their own jigsaw puzzles, if they have their own blog or website they can embed the puzzles right into their online space. If you have a projector or an interactive whiteboard, have students create a puzzle all about them. They can create a collage of things they like in a presentation program, take a screen shot of it, and upload the puzzle to Jigsaw Planet. Students can put together each other’s puzzles and guess who the student is based on the pictures. This would be a great getting to know you activity!

Tips: I split students into two teams. Each team would complete a puzzle using our new Mimio interactive whiteboard, the fastest time was the winner of that round. When the puzzle was completed, students would read the rule and we would discuss in depth. This made rule day fun for the kids and much more enjoyable for me!

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

Health Detective

September 27, 2007October 4, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1537 views

What it is: Health Detective is an interactive game developed by Kaiser Permanente that teaches kids how to make healthy choices. The premiss of the game is an outbreak of unhealthy habits hitting too many kids. The kids get ‘secret’ training on how to eat right an exercise. Students can investigate fun games like whack a snack, soccer, and zap the TV. Students and teachers can also print out classified clues on ways to be healthy.

How to integrate Health Detective into your classroom: This is a fun, motivating way to learn about making healthy exercise and eating choices. In the one computer classroom, set up the Health Detective as a center for students to visit during science/health class. In the computer lab setting each student can play individually (about 20min. game). If you have access to a projector, this would be a fun whole class experience.

Tips: Teachers can print out healthy habits “classified clues” to send home with students.

Secrets @ Sea

September 3, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1122 views

What it is: Secrets @ Sea is the worlds first online ocean adventure learning game. This curriculum based adventure story is targeted for 4th through 7th grade students. The engaging website game complements ocean-theme units of study and enhances students learning experiences using the Internet. Student play the starring role of “Ace”, assistant investigator to Paula Pacific, who is assigned to examine unusual behaviors noticed in killer whale populations in the Alanamorris Strait. As Ace progress through the story, s(he) must successfully complete a number of ocean-related learning activities. The knowledge gained from completing these activities leads the student to the solution of the case.

How to integrate Secrets @ Sea into the classroom: There are four main ocean themes to complement units of study, marine mammals and food webs; salmon, herring and plankton; tides, oceans and mapping; and features of the ocean floor, currents. Individual sections can be completed during a typical classroom computer lab session (30-45 minutes), or all sections can be played together in a longer session. Students can work through the site individually or with the entire class, in partners, or in small groups.

Tips: Visit the Teachers Guide for an overview, introduction, important features, a break down of chapters, learning outcomes, technical specs, extension activities, and engaging science.