Category: Math

Phun

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Phun2119 views

What it is: As promised today I am reviewing the Mac version of Crayon Physics…it isn’t exactly the same, but has very similar principles and applications. Phun is a ‘playground’ where students can be creative while learning about physics principles such as resistance, friction, energy, gravity, force, etc. Phun isn’t a game with a goal like Crayon Physics, instead it is an area where students can create their own shapes and rules and see how they interact when different principles such as gravity and force are applied. Phun is a free program and available for both Mac and PC.


How to integrate Phun into the classroom: Like Crayon Physics, students can use Phun to learn about principles of gravity, energy, force, velocity, etc. Students will enjoy having an environment to test out physics concepts and conceptualize experiments. Phun may have even more application for the physics classroom because it isn’t a puzzle to figure out, but a creative environment to explore and test.

Tips: Because Phun is a free download, students can use this software at school and at home. Cool!

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

Crayon Physics

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Crayon Physics2548 views

What it is: Crayon Physics is a freeware puzzle game. The object of the game is to guide a ball to a star. Students do not have direct control of the ball, but interact with it by drawing shapes with the mouse to get the ball to roll from one platform to another. Any object that students draw reacts as it would if it were subject to gravity. There are some great physics lessons to be taught with this game! Crayon Physics is a Windows only download right now…(I know, bummer for those of us who are Mac users! Not to worry, I have found a Mac version that I will be posting tomorrow.)

How to integrate Crayon Physics into the classroom: Allow students to interact with Crayon Physics to learn about principles of gravity, energy, force, velocity, etc. The game is very entertaining and even mildly addictive. Your students will love learning physics with Crayon Physics. It will bring your class and all those formulas to life for your students.

Tips: Take a look at the video above for a good look at Crayon Physics in action.

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

Moneyopolis

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Moneyopolis17548 views


What it is: Moneyopolis is an awesome game for teaching kids money and math! Each math question in the game is correlated to specific standards for grades 6-8 (although I think the site can be used with 5th grade students very successfully as well). The Moneyopolis game tracks students progress via their “scorecard” for the game. There are some great additional site tools which include a budget gadget that helps students set financial goals complete with an online worksheet to help students keep track of spending habits, a library with articles and links to other sites focused on math and money, a glossary for students to look up unfamiliar words and phrases, and a calculator to help students calculate math problems.

How to integrate Moneyopolis into the classroom: Moneyopolis is the perfect way for teaching math and money skills in a way that will catch and hold your students attention. Students can go through the game during class at their own pace, play in groups to compete against one another during class, or as an extra-credit activity that can be completed outside of class. Students can go through the game section by section based on what lessons you are teaching, or all at once at the end of a unit. Since the game keeps track of each students progress, they will be able to exit the game and come back to work where they left off.

Tips: Work through this game in student mode before introducing to students…you will be entertained! The teacher section of this site has some great lesson plans to use with Moneyopolis. I learned about the site on Larry Ferlazzo’s blog and I have to say, it is a winner!

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

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Leon Math Movies

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Leon Math Movies3921 views


What it is: Leon Math Movies is a part of the I Know That website that I have posted about in the past. After introducing this to a new set of second graders today I knew I needed to write about this specific part of I Know That. The kids absolutely love Leon Math Movies and it helps them practice their math skills (truly they will play this one at home without being asked). It is a great way to reinforce math facts and give some great math fact practice. Best of all it can be adapted to whatever math skill they are learning. They can practice counting, skip counting, all levels of addition, all levels of subtraction, multiplication, division, and a mix of addition and subtraction. Leon is a chameleon that goes on adventures (think Indiana Jones), as the cartoon plays, students have to solve math problems on the on screen PDA to help Leon during his adventures. The storylines and graphics are really well done and fun. Students can choose from 3 math adventure movies and any combination of practice they need. When they finish an adventure they can print out a certificate showing their math fact progress. So much fun!!

How to integrate Leon Math Movies into the classroom: Leon Math Movies are perfect for any classroom or lab configuration. The movies are fun for whole class participation on an interactive whiteboard or with a projector, call students up one at a time to help Leon by solving math problems. This is also a good one to set up on the classroom computers as a math center that students can visit throughout the week. Or, you can use it in the computer lab setting with each student playing individually. If you live in an area where you can assign this one for homework, I guarantee you will have full class participation!

Tips: There are banner ads on the I Know That website, I use these as an opportunity to talk to my class about what an ad is and what the advertisers want us to do. There is also an option to register before playing a game. I always tell my students to choose the “Maybe Later” option so that we don’t have to worry about keeping track of usernames and passwords.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Leon Math Movies in your classroom.

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Zoho Challenge

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Zoho Challenge1975 views


What it is: Zoho may look familiar to you if you have been with me for a while. Zoho has a great online suite of office productivity tools such as spreadsheets, word documents, and online presentations. If you haven’t ever tried out the Zoho tools, they are definitely worth a look! Zoho has a new fabulous tool for teachers, called Zoho Challenge. Zoho Challenge allows teachers to easily conduct tests online in 4 simple steps. Zoho Challenge allows for multiple choice questions and descriptive questions. Results are displayed immediately for you and your students (although this setting can be altered to fit your needs.) Time limits can be specified, difficulty levels calculated automatically, and online access to students details. Zoho Challenge also has the ability to send emails to your students with their scores. Zoho makes it simple to create multiple exams, add candidates, schedule tests for future dates, look at student performance, find out who passed the test in a quick glance, view a “report card”, and view a graphical representation of overall results.

How to integrate Zoho Challenge into the classroom: Zoho Challenge can be used for any classroom testing. It makes it extremely easy for you to grade tests and see the results graphically. Zoho Challenge will save you time and quickly show you who understood the tested material and who needs more practice. Zoho Challenge is best used in a computer lab or mobile lab setting.

Tips: Test results can be sent home to parents via email…cool!

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

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Help a Hedgehog

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Help a Hedgehog4838 views

What it is: Help a Hegehog is a phonics game where students read a set of words as fast as they can to beat a timer. The online game saves the last score so students can work to beat their score. You can choose from a set list of words, or enter your own words based on what your class is working on.

How to integrate Help a Hedgehog into the classroom: Help a Hedgehog can be used on your interactive whiteboard with the whole class, individually, or in a remedial reading classroom. If you play as a class, each day students can work to beat the previous days score. Individually and students can try to beat their own score. This is a great way to start phonics instruction each morning and as practice for new vocabulary. Enter your own vocabulary for students to practice spelling words, science or math vocabulary, etc. Extend the game by adding the rule that students have to define the vocabulary word before they can move onto the next word.

Tips: This site is intended for phonics instruction but would be appropriate for secondary elementary as well with the addition of your own vocabulary. You could even use this tool for math practice, type in problems instead of words and request that the students give the answer before moving onto the next problem. This would be a great way to start your math class with some mental math!

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

Interactive Word Tree

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Interactive Word Tree2280 views

 

What it is: The Interactive Word Tree is perfect for use on your new Wiimote Whiteboard (or any other interactive whiteboard.) The Word Tree allows students or teachers to input up to 26 phonemes or words that become apples on the interactive tree.

How to integrate the Interactive Word Tree into your curriculum: The Interactive Word Tree is very flexible based on your classroom needs. Type in short vowel and long vowels and have the students take turns moving all the short vowel words to one side of the tree and all the long vowel words to the other side. Or, type in spelling words and have students move the apples into alphabetical order. Or, type in science vocabulary and students can categorize words on the tree based on similarities. You can also type in words that form compound words, prefixes and suffixes, etc. for students to practice matching apples. It would also be a wonderful tool for matching rhyming words, synonyms, antonyms, the possibilities are truly limitless since you can type in your own words. Another great feature: your words are automatically saved in the list even if you close the web browser so you don’t have to re-type in the words or vocabulary each day. You can add, delete, or change words at any time. Such a cool tool! As I am writing this I keep thinking of additional uses like preparing for a matching test, simple math problems with the problem on one apple and the answer on another.

Tips: You don’t have to use this great tool with the interactive whiteboard, it would also be a great center for the one to two computer classroom or even for use in the computer lab.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Interactive Word Tree in your classroom.

GeoGebra

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on GeoGebra2207 views

 

What it is: I’m not generally one to get excited about math especially algebra, geometry, and *uggh* calculus. But, I think if I had access to a tool like GeoGebra I might have enjoyed them (or at least understood them) more. GeoGebra is a free dynamic geometry system that lets students complete constructions with points, vectors, segments, lines, conic sections, and functions and change them dynamically afterward. Equations and coordinates can also be entered directly; this means that GeoGebra has the ability to deal with variables for numbers, vectors and points, finds derivatives and integrals of functions and offers commands like Root or Extremum. (If you didn’t catch that you are not a high school math teacher *wink*). If you are a high school or college math teacher or know someone who is…that description just made you feel a little excited. GeoGebra is a free multi-platform download.

How to integrate GeoGebra into your curriculum: Use GeoGebra to help your students understand complicated or abstract math concepts. This software is amazing for your visual learners…again a reason this should have existed when I was in school! Allow your students to explore math concepts with this software and to practice their learning. You can also use GeoGebra to create dynamic math worksheets for your students. Very cool!

Tips: Make sure to check out the examples section for some great GeoGebra uses. You can also attend free online workshops to learn how to use GeoGebra. For some great ideas and further explanation of GeoGebra check them out on Wikipedia.

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

Novel Games-Flash

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Novel Games-Flash2980 views

What it is: Novel Games provides free Flash games that can be embedded on any website. There is a long list of games that you can embed from World capitals game, typing games, to Sudoku and other great math games. Search the list of games, you are sure to find many that fit your needs. Because you can embed the games on your website, students can easily access the games from school and home.

How to integrate Novel Games into your curriculum: There is such a variety of high quality, FUN, educational games that integrating them into your curriculum will be varied as well. An example of how I am using the Novel Games in my classroom can be found at www.typing.weebly.com. My students are learning how to keyboard. Because I don’t want to spend my year teaching only keyboarding I offered my students a challenge. Practice typing at home and come participate in a Typing Olympics (where only touch typing is allowed) and you won’t have to spend your computer time learning to touch type. I am at a private school so the best prize that can be offered is a break dress code day. The fastest touch typer’s in each class will get to break dress code on a day when no one else does. Students can practice typing using these practice games I have provided. The games are perfect as part of the Typing Olympics because they give a final score…easy to tell who the winners are! Most of the games are perfect for practicing a skill and will inevitability get kids doing homework voluntarily because they are so much fun to play.

Tips: Don’t have your own website to embed the flash games? Create a free one today using a site like www.weebly.com. To embed a player simply highlight and copy the code from Novel games and paste in an HTML editor in a site like Weebly. Make sure that your students have the latest Flash player installed or the games won’t work properly.

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

Conginitive Labs

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Conginitive Labs2718 views

 

What it is: Cognitive Labs is a collection of games aimed at working out the brain. The games work both the left and right sides of the brain. There are currently 76 brain games to play on the Cognitive Labs site but games get added regularly.

How to integrate Cognitive Labs into your curriculum: Use Cognitive Labs games as a daily brain teaser or daily warm up for your students. You could have a new game up each day on classroom computers for students to play with and solve throughout the day. If you have a projector in your room invite students to come up and solve the different puzzle games. In a computer lab setting you can have a mini competition to see who can solve each puzzle the quickest. The games are a great way to jump start thinking for the day!

Tips: You have to enter a email address to activate the links on the Cognitive Lab site. The email address does not have to be valid or unique so students do not need to have their own email address to play the brain games.

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