Category: Subject

Tangram House

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Tangram House2054 views

Tangram

What it is: I love tangram puzzles, so when I found Tangram House I was thrilled.  This online version of the Chinese puzzle lets students select a puzzle to complete and work with 7 tans (shapes) to fill the puzzle.  The tans can be rotated, flipped, and dragged into place.  The puzzles can be completed online or downloaded for free as an offline game.

How to integrate Tangram House into the classroom: The format of this website would be appropriate for an interactive whiteboard activity.  Split students into teams that will take turns at the board forming the tangrams.  Encourage the students who are not at the board to help out with good directions and clues for the student working on the puzzle.  This is a good way for kids to practice giving and receiving quality instructions and descriptions.  Tangram House could also be used on classroom computers as a math learning center or individually in a computer lab setting.

Tips: Play online or download for free and play offline.

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

Ecybermission

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Ecybermission1931 views

ecybermission

What it is: Ecybermission is a free, web-based science, math, and technology competition for students in sixth through ninth grade sponsored by the US Army.  Students compete in regional and national awards by working to solve problems in their community.  The goal of the competition is to help students understand how science, math, and technology work in the world today.  Each team needs 3 or 4 student members.  The team members must register and join the team by December 18, 2009.  Each team also needs 1 adviser this could be a teacher, coach, club leader, etc that is at least 21 years old.  There are four mission challenges that a team can choose from: sports and recreation, 2009-2010 scenario challenge, environment, or health and safety.  Students will research the problem they are seeking to address, write a hypothesis, and conduct experiments.  An online Team-Talk allows students to meet with each other online using discussion forums, chat rooms, and instant messaging.  Students can answer questions in an online mission folder that allows them to attach files such as photographs, survey questions, or a website.  At the end of the competion the mission folder is submited (before February 26, 2010).

How to integrate Ecybermission into the classroom: Why not make Ecybermission a portion of your schools science fair?  Students could gather into teams competing in the competion, solving real-world problems.  My guess is that this competition would be a much richer learning experience than the typical volcanoes, and planet mobiles that usually show up to science fairs.  As students work to solve a problem, they will build communication, collaboration, innovation, critical thinking and scientific process skills.

Tips: Get your students signed up today, registration is open from now until December 18, 2009.  I would think the more time you can provide your students the better! Need an added bonus?  Any team that registers with Ecybermission gets Brian Pop for free!

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

The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits4206 views

The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits

What it is: The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits is a fun, interactive website where individuals or groups of students can learn about circuits.  There are 5 sections to the Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits.  Section 1 teaches students about what makes circuits work, section 2 teaches about conductors and insulators, section 3 teaches about switches, section 4 teaches about changing circuits, and section 5 teaches about circuit diagrams.  Each section includes a teaching portion, an activity, and a quiz.  If students answer all of the questions in the quiz correctly, they get a special bonus activity after they have completed each section.  The “Blobz” characters explain each section with pictures, animations, and text.

How to integrate The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits into the classroom: The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits is a fun way to teach students about circuits, conductors, insulators, switches, and diagrams.  Students could work on this website individually, in small groups as a center activity during an electric circuits unit, or as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard.  The information section might be good to go through with the whole class for some guided practice and instruction.  Students could complete the activities and quizzes individually or in small groups as a center after instruction.

Tips: This site is British so some of the vocabulary may be unfamiliar (for example a flashlight is called a torch).

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits  in your classroom.

UDL Book Builder

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on UDL Book Builder4129 views

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What it is: UDL Book Builder is a site where you can create your own interactive digital stories.  The books have built in coaches that can support diverse learning needs.  The coaches direct student learning even when students are working independently.  The digital books can include text, images, audio, glossary terms (that are linked within the story), and coaches that can provide hints, prompts, and modeling.  The published books can be viewed online, downloaded to a computer, saved to a CD, or shared with others in the UDL library.  Both teachers and students can use the UDL Book Builder to create interactive digital stories.

How to integrate UDL Book Builder into the classroom: Use the UDL Book Builder to create interactive stories for your students that meet their specific learning needs.  Include students and familiar locations in your stories to boost reading motivation.  Students love starring in their own stories.  As you are creating a book in the Book Builder, be sure to devleop the coaches within the book.  The coaches can offer reading hints, strategies, and model good reading.  Start a school library of teacher created digital books.  As the digital library is devleoped, be sure to note which reading skills are being emphasized so that other teachers can quickly sort through books that will match their students learning needs and interests.  Students can also create digital books from their writing.  The writing should be ready to publish (correct spelling, grammar, etc.).  These stories can easily be shared online with other students in class, in the school, and with pen pals.  UDL Book Builder would be a great tool for creating stories as a class using the interactive whiteboard.

Tips: The UDL Book Builder site has a great section with tips for authors and illustrators using the Builder.  These tips are helpful for any adults creating a book, but are also worth sharing with students using the tool.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using UDL Book Builder  in your classroom.

Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos2617 views

What it is: Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos has an amazing collection of animated videos that help increase student vocabulary.  The extensive collection of videos can be used for study, SAT preparation, and increased word understanding.  The Word Ahead study room provides students with a distraction free environment with vocabulary videos and flash cards.  New vocabulary videos are uploaded regularly.  Students can join Word Ahead for free and have a new vocabulary video sent to them each day (think word of the day 2.0).  Want to inspire some creativity in your classroom?  Students can create and upload their own vocabulary videos.  Each video is reviewed before posting to ensure appropriateness.

How to integrate Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos into the classroom: Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos are an excellent way to expand and enrich student vocabulary.  The video format will help solidify new words for students.  Register to get a new video emailed to you each day.  Share these videos with your students as a precursor to class.  Make the vocabulary video word the word of the day.  Challenge students to use the word throughout the day.  Word Ahead is also a great site to use with English language learners.  The videos are a fantastic way for students to visually increase vocabulary development.  As an extension activity, take vocabulary from class curriculum and have students create their own vocabulary video to upload to Word Ahead.

Tips: Tell parents about Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos, they are always looking for great sites to help their kids study.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos  in your classroom.

Discover the Forest

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Discover the Forest2909 views

Discover the Forest

What it is: Last week I wrote about an amazing interactive forest called UPM Forest Life.  I found a website today that would be a great site to couple with a UPM Forest Life virtual field trip.  Discover the Forest is a site that has fun games and activities for students to complete online and a great booklet to print out full of activities to complete outside.  After travelling through the UPM Virtual Forest, students can head over to the Discover the Forest website and  listen to animal sounds, create leaf rubbings, learn how to use a compass, and match animal tracks.

How to integrate Discover the Forest into the classroom: Discover the Forest would be an excellent follow-up activity for a virtual field trip (or actual field trip) to a forest.  Students can complete the short online activities as part of a science learning center, or on individual student computers.  Encourage students to use the “Find a Forest or Park Near You” feature to find the nearest forest.  Students can plan a trip to the closest forest complete with a supply checklist, a map, and a checklist of wildlife to look for.  If you are fortunate enough to have a forest nearby, you can print out the “Book of Stuff to do Outside” for students to complete.

Tips: This site has an excellent interactive to teach students how to use a compass, be sure to check it out!  Thank you to @larryferazzo for Tweeting about this fun site!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Discover the Forest in your classroom.

Image Chef

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Image Chef3853 views

Image Chef

What it is: Image Chef is a great little web tool that takes words and transforms them into a graphical image.  Image Chef is similar in look to Wordle but works a little differently.  In Wordle, the size of the word changes based on how frequently the word was used in the text.  In Image Chef, the word size doesn’t change based on how frequently it is used in the text.  Image Chef takes the words typed in a text box, and displays them in a word mosaic.  Image Chef has a variety of shapes and symbols to choose from.  Any text entered will be displayed in the shape selected.  Registered users can also create their own shapes to display text graphically.  Image Chef has the added bonus of graphically displaying text inside letters.  The look of the image can be changed by adjusting font, text color, background color, and symbol or initial.  Individual words can be highlighted by changing the color and clicking on a word in the mosaic.  Word mosaics can be shared on blogs, emailed, printed, or saved on Image Chef.

How to integrate Image Chef into the classroom: Image Chef is a fun web tool for displaying words in new and interesting ways.  My favorite feature of Image Chef is the ability to create word mosaics inside letters.  This feature would be a good way for students to practice phonics.  For example, students could create a letter “a” word mosaic filled with short a words (see my example above).  Students could type blends inside of the blend letters, long and short vowel words, r-conrolled words, etc.  These word mosaics could be printed out and bound into a phonics booklet for students, or displayed on a word wall.  Image Chef mosaics would also be a great way for students to explore synonyms.  Students can type synonyms into the text box and find or create an appropriate symbol to represent the words.  Image Chef would make for a fun first week of school activity.  Students could type in their initials as the shape for the word mosaic.  In the text field, they can type in words that represent them.  Print these out and display on a bulletin board next to student pictures.  For older students, Image Chef could be used to create a large periodic table of elements.  Choose the initials that represent the element on the periodic table and type the name of the element in the text box to fill the initials.  Create a large periodic table for the classroom with the printed elements.

Tips: I learned about this awesome web tool from a tweet by @njtechteacher, definitely a teacher to follow this #teachertuesday!  When you click on the Image Chef Link you will be taken to the Image Chef homepage (the site contains much more than just the word mosaic)  To create a word mosaic click on “Word Mosaic” under “Create” in the left column of the website.

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

Moon in Google Earth

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Moon in Google Earth2816 views

What it is: Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Mission.  I have been following the moon landing on We Choose the Moon.  This is an incredible site that has allowed me to re-live (for the first time) the Apollo 11 mission as if it were happening today.  In honor of this historic day, Google released Google Earth 5.0 complete with Moon view.  With Moon in Google Earth you and your students can take tours of landing sites narrated by Apollo astronauts, view 3-D models of landed spacecraft, zoom into 360* photos of astronauts footprints, and watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions.

How to integrate Moon in Google Earth into the classroom: Now that the moon has made an appearance in Google Earth, your students can experience the moon and Apollo missions up close and personal.  Space, astronauts, Apollo missions, and the moon were the stuff of legends before the space race took off.  Moon in Google Earth brings back the excitement of the space race allowing students to explore and discover.  This is an excellent virtual field trip to take your students on during any space or moon unit.  Use an interactive whiteboard to discover as a class.  Students can take turns being moon tour guides.  Students could also explore independently keeping their discoveries in a space journal and reporting back to others what they discovered on their journey to the moon.

Tips: Google Earth is a download.  If you need IT to perform downloads for you, be sure that Google Earth makes it on your list of must haves for the school year.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Moon in Google Earth in your classroom.Moon in Google Earth

The Secret in the Cellar

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The Secret in the Cellar2373 views

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What it is: A few days ago I wrote about the awesome interactive Smithsonian Museum, today I found another great activity on the Smithsonian website called The Secret in the Cellar.  The Secret in the Cellar is an interactive web comic that is based on an actual forensic case of a 17th century body that was recently discovered.  Through graphics, photos, and activities, students begin to unravel a mystery of historical and scientific importance.  Students can analyze artifacts, and examine the skeleton for clues to determine a cause of death.  Because of the subject matter of this web comic, this activity is best suited for middle school or high school students.

How to integrate The Secret in the Cellar into the classroom: The Secret in the Cellar activities and web comic are a fantastic way to excite students about the history of Colonial life in America and the science behind archeology.  This site takes students on a journey of discovery and critical thinking.  Throughout the web comic, students will find links to additional articles about the actual forensic case and the display at the Smithsonian Museum.  This activity would be best in a computer lab setting where each student can explore at their own pace.  Along the way, encourage students to keep a record of their inferences about how the boy died.  Before students complete the web-comic, discuss what conclusions students have come to based on the evidence.

Tips: Students can dig deeper into this site learning about bones, the lives of colonists, forensic anthropology, and learn more about the related exhibit at the Smithsonian.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Secret in the Cellar in your classroom.