Category: Fun & Games

Animalia

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Animalia3745 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.

Mrs. P’s Magic Library

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Mrs. P’s Magic Library3584 views

 

What it is: I heard about this wonderful website from Larry Ferlazzo on his blog last week and have been exploring it ever since.  Mrs. P’s Magic Library is a free website for kids that celebrates reading and books.  Mrs. P is the librarian at the Magic Library, she brings story time to life with video stories and read-alongs.  Her library also features fun animated games and lots of crazy characters that students will love.   When students enter this virtual library they will have access to Mrs. P reading them a story, fun interactive games, and videos (lots more to explore!!).  The whole idea behind the library is to introduce students to great literature read to them in classic story-time style (not just listening to an audio book).  This virtual library is about as close as you can get to the real thing!  Your students will love Mrs. P.

 

How to integrate Mrs. P’s Magic Library into the classroom:    Mrs. P’s Magic Library is an outstanding addition to any classroom.  Use Mrs. P.com as a place to begin silent reading one day a week.  Use a projector and speakers so that Mrs. P can read to your class before they begin their silent reading time.  Mrs. P’s excellent storytelling abilities will have even your reluctant readers eager to read.  Tell parents about Mrs. P so that students can enjoy the virtual library from school or home.  Mrs. P’s Magic Library makes a great reading/ listening center and the options to read along or listen make it ideal for any students ability level.

 

Tips:   Mrs. P’s Magic Library requires high speed Internet access because of all the video and interactive games on the site.  This one may eat up some serious bandwidth in a computer lab setting!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Mrs. P’s Magic Library in your classroom.

Watch Know

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Watch Know1762 views

 

 

What it is:   Watch Know is a new educational video collection site.  The site has not been officially launched and is still in beta version but already has a number of outstanding educational videos all offered for free!  Watch Know brings together the best educational videos online into one convenient-to-search, safe site.  Teachers, parents, and kids come together to find the videos, the videos are then approved for appropriateness by a media review panel made up mostly by school teachers and librarians.  The site is very easy to search by category, topic, or keywords.  Every video that I viewed was outstanding!

 

How to integrate Watch Know into the classroom:   Watch Know is a great place to find educational videos to introduce any topic to students.  The videos are wonderful to use as the anticipatory portion of a lesson to capture students interest in new topics, themes, or subjects.  The videos are also well used as discussion starters for classroom debates/discussions.  Because the videos are collected from all around the Internet but hosted on the Watch Know website, you can bring educational You Tube videos into the classroom even if your school blocks You Tube.  Encourage students to interact and think critically about the video by rating the videos and leaving comments.

 

Tips:   Videos are collected from all over the Internet from sites like SlideBoom to sites like You Tube.  Some videos are interactive.  I particularly liked the Logic puzzle interactive video where a logic puzzle is presented, kids can work out the puzzle and then click the video for the correct answer.  

 

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

Canvastic dot NET

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What it is:   Canvastic dot NET is the online beta version of a drawing software program I have written a post about in the past.  Canvastic is basically a Kid Pix type program without all the “toys” it lets students draw and write without being distracted by the ability to “blow things up” or “flush” their picture.  Canvastic dot NET is the FREE online version of the program.  The online version doesn’t have all the bells and whistle that the software version does but it is an excellent online drawing program that lets students save their work to a flash drive or computer and print out their work.  It also has a great replay button that lets them replay and watch the picture they just drew.  

 

How to integrate Canvastic dot NET into the classroom:   The online version of Canvastic is wonderful for those students who use software at school and wish they had it for home projects.  Canvastic can be used for all kinds of amazing classroom projects, some of the ideas included on the Canvastic website are:

abstract art
animations
bitmap art
books
brochures
cards
cartoons
characters
charts
conversations
covers
decorations
designs
diagrams
doodles
drawings
explanations
flow charts
flyers
graphs
illustrations
interviews
landscapes
letters
lists
logos
maps
math art
notes
pages
paragraphs
pictures
plans
plays
poems
portraits
posters
presentations
questions
quotes
reports
scenes
science reports
sentences
slide shows
stories
vector art
write-ups

The Canvastic replay button allows students to watch the process of a drawing.  Students could use the replay feature for a plant cycle unit.  Have students start out by drawing the plant cycle in order, when they replay their mini movie, it shows the plant cycle in action….very cool!

 

Tips:   Check out Canvastic.com to get great lesson ideas and resources for using Canvastic in your classroom!

 

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

Kid Thing

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Kid Thing2442 views

 

What it is:   I could have sworn that I had written a post about Kid Thing in the past, but after running several searches on my posts, I came up empty.  Kid Thing is a secure digital media player for kids in grades k-4.  Kid Thing accesses the Internet but is not a web browser.  It is more like an iTunes type environment designed specifically for kids.  There are no advertisements on Kid Thing and because it is not a web browser, there is no place to type a web address where students could inadvertently stumble on inappropriate content.  The Kid Thing player is free to download and they often have free downloads of learning and interactive activities for students.  There is also a Kid Thing store where additional books, videos, games, and creative arts can be downloaded to the Kid Thing player.  Everything in the store is very reasonably priced.  Right now Kid Thing is offering a free download in addition to the player, a 25 day Countdown to Christmas.  Each day students will get to open a new kid thing Surprise with a game to play.  After the game has been opened, it will stay on the Kid Thing player to be played over and over again.  

 

How to integrate Kid Thing into the classroom:   The Kid Thing player would make an excellent reading center, or learning center for phonics, language arts, and math.  The player is very user friendly for students.  Start each morning with the free Countdown for Christmas, let each student have a turn to be the one to open the Countdown for Christmas surprise.  Throughout the day, let students visit the Kid Thing center to complete the new activity for the day.  Kid Thing is great for the one or two classroom computers, a computer lab, a projector or interactive whiteboard, and for home use.  Encourage parents to download Kid Thing at home and add books and games that are appropriate for their child.

 

Tips:   At the moment Kid Thing only runs on PC’s running Window’s XP and Vista.  There is a Mac version in the works (hooray!!) and if you visit the download page you can sign up to be the first to know when the Mac version is available.  

 

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

Build Your Wild Self

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Build Your Wild Self3097 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.

Kids and Cookies

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Kids and Cookies2195 views

 

What it is:   Kids and Cookies is an online flash game that teaches elementary students about fractions in a game setting.  Students choose characters to be their “friends” and then choose how many cookies they have.  They have to evenly share the cookies with their friends and can use different cutters to divide the cookies.  The site provides a great introduction to rational number fractions.

 

How to integrate Kids and Cookies into the classroom:    This is a great site for introducing your students to the concepts of fractions, especially those at the “sharing” and “fair” age because of the way that they have to share and split up the cookies fairly.  This would be a good whole class activity with an interactive whiteboard or a projector where students take turns sharing their cookies.  As they share the cookies, talk about the fractions of cookies (for example when they split the cookie in half or in thirds.)  This would also be a perfect site to use as a math center.  Students can visit the center in groups and discuss their findings as a whole class after every student has had the opportunity to interact with the site.

 

Tips:  You can find more advanced (much more advanced) flash math games and activities on the Center of Technology and Education site where the Kids and Cookies game is hosted. This is also a great game for those of you who don’t have Internet access in your classroom because their is a free downloadable version of the game for Macs and PC’s…cool!

 

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

Glogster EDU!

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Glogster EDU!3780 views

 

What it is:  I wrote a post last week about a site called Glogster, since that post Glogster has introduced Glogster EDU!  Glogster for Education is a site that lets students combine graphics, photos, videos, music, and text into a great web 2.0 online poster.  Glogs are an outstanding way to enhance learning, wikis, and blogs.  Glogster EDU offers support and help with creating school accounts and keeping Glogs private.  

 

How to integrate Glogster EDU into the classroom:    As I mentioned last week, Glogster is a creative way for your students to display knowledge.  Students can create Glogs for absolutely any subject.  Glogster is wonderful for book reports, history, math concepts, science, and literature.  The ability to embed Glogs into wikis and blogs is outstanding and makes Glogs even more versatile.

 

Tips: Send Glogster EDU feedback about features you would like to see specifically for education…they have committed to updates based on your feedback!

 

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

Toy Maker

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Toy Maker2417 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.

Apple Field Trips

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Apple Field Trips1797 views

 

What it is:  The Apple Store is offering field trips to k-12 students and schools!  Students can create something amazing on their field trip to the Apple store, or bring in a finished project that they have created and turn the store into a theater to share their work.  Parents, teachers, and friends can attend the event to celebrate student achievement.  Each event can accommodate up to 25 students.  A field trip lasts one hour but more time can be scheduled on an individual basis.  Right now, schools can request up to 3 date options for a field trip at a time.  When you schedule a field trip, Apple takes care of invitations to send home with students, and assigns a contact person to plan the field trip for your school.  Additionally, the teacher who sets up the event receives one year of complementary One to One membership.  Every participating student receives a special Apple t-shirt.  

 

How to integrate an Apple Field Trip into the classroom:   If you have access to Apple computers at your school the create and share field trip option is for you.  Students can work on a project (multimedia is probably best) and use the Apple Field Trip as a place to showcase and share their accomplishments.  If you don’t have access to an Apple lab or don’t have regular access to computers at all, use the field trip as a time for your students to learn and create using the computer.  This is a really amazing FREE opportunity, be sure to take advantage of this offer from Apple!

 

Tips: Right now field trips are only being offered through November 21st. Even if you can’t fit in a field trip before the deadline, be sure to let Apple know what a fabulous idea these field trips are and encourage them to offer future field trip options.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how your Apple Field Trip went.