Tag: Social Studies

Let’s Say Thanks

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What it is: Let’s Say Thanks is a website that allows students, parents, teachers, and everyone to write messages to our troops serving around the world. By submitting a message through this site you have the opportunity to send a free personalized postcard greeting to deployed servicemen and women. Students select a student created image from the site and then type in a personal message of thanks. Let’s Say Thanks prints the messages and sends them around the world to our troops.

How to integrate Let’s Say Thanks into the classroom: Let’s Say Thanks is a wonderful activity to do around Thanksgiving as an activity in being thankful. What a perfect way to teach students gratitude while making an impact on those serving around the world. You could also integrate this activity into social studies learning about our troops, or current events. We live in a global world and this activity could open up discussions about where our troops are serving and what the culture is like where they are stationed.

Tips: Encourage your students to read the messages on Let’s Say Thanks “From the Troops”.

Comapping

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What it is: Comapping is a mind mapping/concept mapping online application that offers a unique left to right mind mapping technique. While the application is not free, Comapping does offer a free trial version for schools and very competitive pricing. Students can collaborate on mind maps in real-time. Comapping has a feature that other mind mapping solutions don’t have, a presentation tool. Teachers and students can actually turn their mind map into a presentation quickly and easily in the same web-browser. Comapping also has an auto focus feature which makes it easy to collapse maps and “zoom in” to the portion of the map being worked on.

How to integrate Comapping into the classroom: Teachers can use Comapping to structure lessons, units and themes in the classroom. Comapping would be an excellent way to organize the structure of the lessons for each subject and to align standards with those lessons. Students can create character diagrams, comparison charts, story diagrams, vocabulary word diagrams, timelines, effect of events, experiment maps, food pyramids, scientific processes, life cycles, and more. This tool will be valuable for your visual learners! Comapping would also be a useful tool when teaching students how to note-take. Comappings left to right mapping technique makes note taking succinct and easy to refer back to and understand. The collaboration portion of Comapping is useful to students completing projects together as well as for teachers and staff for creating units and lessons together.

Tips: I encourage you to select “try Comapping without an account” to learn about how it works. This will take you to an interactive page where you can learn, step by step about how to use Comapping. Really neat! Once you are sold, you can sign up for a free trial account.

Comapping for Education PowerPoint


Geni

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What it is: Geni is a genealogy family tree site.

How to integrate Geni into your classroom: Encourage your students to learn more about their family. Students can gather information about their family and create a family tree using Geni’s easy to use tools. Parents can collaborate with their students on this project easily. The Geni family tree can be printed out and emailed to other family members.

Tips: Encourage parents to collaborate with their students on this easy to use site.

 

Inspired Learning

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What it is: Inspired learning is a collection of lesson plans and ideas for using visual software such as Inspiration, and Kidspiration in the classroom.

How to integrate Inspired Learning into your curriculum: Use Inspired Learning for ideas and lessons to integrate visual software into the classroom. If you don’t already have visual, mind mapping software, you can download Free Mind open source (free) software to use with the lessons and ideas.

Tips: Click on the Educators Resource page on Inspired Learning for a free trial version of Inspiration and Kidspiration.

 

 

Glossopedia

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What it is: Glossopedia is a site for second to sixth graders about animals, plants, and the environment. Glossopedia offers multimedia tools and programs to teach students.

How to integrate Glossopedia into your social studies curriculum: Invite students to fill out a graphic organizer (like a KWL chart) using Glossopedia to introduce a new subject. Allow young students to use Glossopedia to learn basic web search skills.

Tips: Visit the educators page to download great learning activities.

 

 

I Know That Social Studies

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What it is: I Know That Social Studies is a site that encourages students to learn geography and how to use maps through games and activities. Activities include clue maps, label maps, puzzle maps, and pushpins maps.

How to integrate I Know That Social Studies into your social studies curriculum: Use I Know That Social Studies as map practice. Students can practice geography with the puzzles, and label maps. This is a wonderful site to use in preparation for quizzes!

Tips: I Know That has some advertisements on its site, these can be removed by purchasing a subscription. I use the sites advertisements to teach my students about how to spot ads on a website and to teach why some sites have ads. Check out the teachers guide for each game and activity for some great ideas.