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World Math Day 2009

February 2, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3674 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.

Password Bird

January 30, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment15224 views

What it is: Password Bird is an extremelly simple website, but one that I love to use with my elementary students. Password Bird helps students create a password using a few easy to answer questions. Students enter a name that is special to them, a word that is special to them, and date that is special to them. Password Bird takes these and turns it into a randomly generated password. The ideas is that the password generated will be something easy for students to remember but hard for others to guess.

How to integrate Password Bird into the classroom: In my computer classroom I hear the words “I don’t know what my password should be” a lot. Password Bird is the perfect place to send these kids. It helps them create a password quickly that should be fairly easy for them to remember. Sometimes Password Bird generates great passwords, and sometimes the passwords are not as strong. I have used Password Bird to generate passwords that we then dissect and decide if it is a strong password or not.

Tips: Not every password generated on Password Bird will be a strong password, usually this is due to the words that the students chose that make it a weak password. Use the opportunity to discuss what makes it a particularly strong or weak password.

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

FontStruct

January 30, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1959 views

What it is: FontStruct is a free website that lets students build, share, and download fonts that they create in a simple font editor. First students name their font, then they use the font editor to draw each character of the alphabet using font bricks and a grid system. After each character has been created, the font can be downloaded and added to the fonts folder to be used in any word processing program or desktop presentation program.

How to integrate FontStruct into the classroom: It would be fun to come up with a class font where each student is responsible for a letter in the font. The font could be used for typing practice, or as a header for newsletters that go home each week. FontStruct is a motivating environment for students to practice forming their letters. They love knowing that they created a font of their very own. The fonts can be used for anything, I have found that my students love creating a font and using it for typing practice or as titles for projects or slide shows. If you are creating a class font, this can be done on an interactive whiteboard or on a classroom computer. If each student will be creating their own font, individual computers are needed.

Tips: FontStruct does require registration with an email address. In my class, I created a school username and password so that each student didn’t have to register for an account individually.

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

Movavi

January 28, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4006 views

What it is: Movavi is a free, online video converter. What I love about Movavi is its ease of use, there is no software to install and the site doesn’t have ads. Enter a URL of a video or upload a file, choose your preferred output format, and enter your email address. That is it! Movavi does the rest for you, you will get an email with a link to download the video. Simple!

How to integrate Movavi into the classroom: Movavi is great for those schools where YouTube and other video websites are blocked. You can download the video for your class and view the downloaded version without worrying about it being blocked. It is also great for those times when bandwidth is an issue. Download the video and you won’t have to worry about a choppy video during peak Internet use times of the day. After a video is downloaded, it can be viewed on a machine that isn’t Internet connected. Embed the downloaded videos into PowerPoint or Keynote presentations. You can even convert 5 videos at a time and have them merged into one video as part of the conversion process.

Tips: Make sure you know which video formats play best on your computer before converting video.

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

Animal Games

January 27, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4910 views

What it is: Animal Games is part of the Sheppard Software’s Kids corner. The site has games about animals that help them learn animal classification, the difference between herbivores and carnivores, the food chain, endangered animals, producers and consumers, animal diet, and animal characteristics. The games are fun and easy to play and teach some important animal science concepts.

How to integrate Animal Games into the classroom: These games are perfect for the kindergarten through second grade classroom. They teach the basics of the food chain, animal kingdom, and animal classification through an interactive game environment. These games would be appropriate for the one or two computer classroom as a science center, with a projector and whole class instruction, or in the computer lab setting.

Tips: This site does have some advertisements, use this opportunity to discuss ads with your students and help them spot the ads on each page (some advertisements look like a game).

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

Rebus Puzzles

January 27, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3506 views

What it is: Rebus puzzles (also known as word puzzles or frame puzzles) is a NIEHS kids site that hosts a collection of Rebus brain teasers. The brain teasers each have a drop down menu that reveals the answer to the puzzle. These puzzles are a fun way to get students thinking creatively and ‘outside the box’.

How to integrate Rebus Puzzles into the classroom: Start your day off with a little brain bending using these Rebus puzzles. Print out the puzzle or share on a projector at the beginning of the day. Give students 2-5 min to solve the brain puzzle of the day. This is a great way to get those creative muscles a work out and jump start the brain for a day of learning.

Tips: There is more than one page of puzzles so keep exploring!

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

Mathway: Step-by-Step Math Problem Solver

January 27, 2009Kelly Tenkely3 Comments9236 views

What it is: Mathway is a website that I initially didn’t appreciate. The site is a step-by-step problem solver and my immediate reaction was: so we will be helping students cheat? But, the more I explored the site, the more I saw its value. The beauty of Mathway is that it is not just a site where students enter an equation and get an answer, the site shows the process of getting to that answer. It shows them the step-by-step process of obtaining the correct answer. Mathway has a step-by-step problem solver for basic math, pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, and calculus. It also has a graph section and a math glossary.

How to integrate Mathway into the classroom: Mathway could be very valuable to students who have notebooks full of notes but get home to solve the problem and are still stumped. I like that it doesn’t just give students the final answer but leads them to the answer, showing them the process. This would also be very useful in a large class. If students are struggling with a problem, they can visit the math center (a computer with Mathway) instead of wasting time waiting for a teacher explanation.

Tips: Let parents know about , you will be saving them from the frustration of having to dig into the recesses of their mind to remember how to do some of this, and saving yourself from re-explaining the correct method after parents have guessed and taught students the wrong way.

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

The Periodic Table of Videos

January 27, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2785 views

So today is going to be another whirl wind of posts day. I am cleaning out my Google Notebook saved sites, hopefully you will find one of these awesome resources helpful for your classroom!

What it is: If I had access to the Periodic Table of Videos when I was going through chemistry, my understanding would have exponentially increased! This site literally looks like a periodic table, when a student clicks on one of the elements, a video opens up that explains the element. So neat! The site was created by the University of Nottingham, who is continually updating the videos with the latest and greatest experiments and explanations. There is a section with extra videos, a collection of science bloopers that are entertaining.

How to integrate The Periodic Table of Videos into the classroom: The Periodic Table of Videos is a great way to introduce the elements to students. I remember spending hours memorizing the Periodic Table but never really understood the properties of the elements. This site will help your students get a grasp on exactly what the different elements do. This is also a great way to bring those elements into your room that aren’t practical or readily available. Use this with your chemistry classes in the computer lab setting or with a projector.

Tips: The Features section has some extra videos on topics such as experiments and noble gases.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Periodic Table of Videos in your classroom.

Splat Square

January 26, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment13495 views

What it is: Splat Square is one of those very simple websites that you will end up using weekly in your math classroom. Splat Square is a 100 grid that starts out blank. There are different ‘splat’ colors on the right side of the screen. Choose a color and then click on the square, ‘splat’, the number is revealed with a splatter of colored paint. The interactive grid is wonderful for several applications in the math classroom.

How to integrate Splat Square into the classroom: Splat Square is perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard. Teach students to count by 2, 5, 10, etc. by ‘splatting’ those spaces as you count aloud as a class. Teach students the difference between odd and even numbers by color coding the 100 grid, prime numbers, skip counting, and ordinal counting can also be practiced with Splat Square. This is a great grid to use with the whole class with the students interacting with the grid on an interactive whiteboard. It can be used as a interactive math help center or individually in a lab setting. I like using the grid for whole class math games, I call out what rule I want the teams to follow and they can take turns at the board.

Tips: Share this one with parents, it can be a big help for your visual learners during math homework.

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

Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes

January 23, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment10045 views

What it is: I ran across this site yesterday as I was searching for a Geometry site for a teacher. Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes is a great website for students to learn about 3D shapes, surface area and volume, Euler’s theorem, and platonic solids. Each section gives students an interactive environment where they can manipulate 3D objects as they learn. In the surface and area section, students can learn how to calculate area of a 3D object and then have an interactive space to practice calculating the area of 3D objects. At the end of the site there is a place where students can put their knowledge to the test and apply what they have learned. This is an outstanding alternative to learning from a text book. The Interactives site gives students what a text book can’t, interaction with 3D shapes and the ability to rotate and manipulate the shapes. Throughout the site, math words are highlighted in red, students can click on these words and are taken to a glossary that defines the word for them.

How to integrate Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes into the classroom: Use the Interactives Geometry 3D Shape site to introduce 3D shapes, area, Euler’s Theorem, and platonic solids to your students. This is a great way for your students to learn geometry, especially 3D geometry, in an environment where they can interact with and manipulate 3D shapes. This site could be used with a projector, interactive whiteboard, as a math center in the one computer classroom, or individually in a lab setting. Use the interactive portions with an interactive whiteboard to manipulate shapes for students to see as you are teaching new concepts about 3D shapes. This would be a wonderful site to point your students to for geometry homwork help, students can use it to model and define concepts they may find difficult as they work.

Tips: The Test Your Skills section gives students 15 problems to complete that are accompanied by photos, illustrations, or animations. I wish my geometry tests looked like this! I am such a visual person, I think I would have been so much more successful.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Interactives Geometry 3D Shapes in your classroom.