Primary fun with ABC Mouse!

I was looking through my posts the other day and I realized that I really don't have that many resources for Pre-K and K teachers!  Luckily, I had this little gem of a website on standby!

ABC Mouse is a great resource that is FREE for public school teachers! (Click here to sign up for the free public school account) Using this site you can set up a single teacher account with the option of setting up accounts for each of your students.  For each account you set up, you can choose the level at which that student functions.  Choosing the level sets it up so that the students is only able to choose activities that apply to their level.  The student will eventually level up as he/she makes progress on their current level by completing the outlined activities.

There are over 2,000 activities for your students to complete, either by exploring the general classroom, or by following the outlined lesson activities to progress to the next level.  Available activities have a strong focus on reading, but also include math, music, art, and beginning social/science.  As each activity is completed, students are rewarded with tickets that they can save up to buy things for their avatar or classroom.

 

This.......Is.......Jeopardy Labs!!

Everyone loves a good Jeopardy review game!  And, I've seen them come in all forms....from overhead projector transparencies, to poster board, to game consoles, to SMART Notebook templates, and beyond.  Here is another to add to your repertoire!

Jeopardy Labs is an online resource for creating your very own Jeopardy templates.  It's very easy to type in your own answers and questions in the editor.  The site even allows you to save your template with a password so you can come back to edit it at another time.  You do not need to create an account to use the site, since each game created gets it's own URL address.  However, creating an account is a possibility for (what I am assuming is) a one-time price of at least $20.00.  An account allows you to see a list of all your created templates, control privacy settings on your templates, and delete templates.

Once you've finished creating your template, you can play the game with up to 12 teams, and even keep track of the score and used Answer clues right in your web browser.....or download it and play it from a Flash player on your computer, no Internet needed!

If you're not in the mood to create your own Jeopardy game, you can browse for games created by others and use them as-is or tweak them to fit your needs.

Check out this 8th Grade Science Vocab Game that I found and modified:
http://jeopardylabs.com/play/8th-grade-science-vocabulary2


Oh, and the theme song is NOT included. For those of you who would like to download it from televisiontunes.com click -----> HERE   :)

Sheppard Software - Educational games and review online

Today's site is Sheppard Software, a collection of fun online games that helps students review, learn, and progress in several subjects.  The site can be used K-12 and beyond.  They even recommend the best games and activities to use based on grade level (seen by scrolling down to the bottom of the home page). 

Some of my favorites are:
Geography - Practice at different  levels of difficulty; explore, learn, and test yourself in identifying capitals and countries for all the countries of the world.

Science (Animals) - Learn more about the food chain, and producer/consumer relationships in these fun games!

Grammar - Practice parts of speech and punctuation placement!  Or, for higher level students, check out SAT and GRE vocab!

 The site also offers free software downloads of some of their games for teachers!  Have fun and check it out!



**NOTE: I found that this site is best used with internet explorer.

Super Teacher Tools, games made easy and so much more!

Hello everyone!  My day was just made when my good friend Mr. Tom Place, over at The Giga Bite shared a wonderful site with me.

Super Teacher Tools is a fantastic site where you can go to find FREE, easy to use, customizable review games and teacher resources.  You can download them, play them online, or customize and download your very own game.  I tried the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game (in honor of Regis' retirement, of course) and it was very easy to fill in the questions and answers!  The game even comes complete with sound effects and lifelines!  Also check out Jeopardy!

There are also teacher resources available such as the seating chart and random group maker.

I also loved the world population counter; watch the population rise right in front of your eyes!

Go check it out!

***NOTE*** Please note that the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game library has been attacked by spammers.  Please do not click on any of the games currently listed.  Tom has emailed the site administrators for Super Teacher Tools and they should fix the issue soon.

Get Your Kids Interested in Government with iCivics!

Today is the big day!  Time to vote!  In celebration of our nation's finest quality, I want to highlight a great site that will help your students understand the different branches of our government and see that the jobs of politicians are not always easy!

Check out iCivics and go to the game section where your students can be immersed in the life of a lawyer in the Supreme Court, a legislator, or even the president!  These are real eye-openers!

Kerpoof!

Kerpoof is a site hosted by Disney that is a great place for young students to be make pictures, write stories, practice spelling, and generally get creative!  Here's a list of what students can do on Kerpoof, straight from the website itself:

• Make artwork (even if you aren't good at drawing!)
• Make an animated movie (really! it's easy!)
• Earn Koins which you can trade for fun things in the Kerpoof Store
• Make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug
• Tell a story
• Make a drawing
• Vote on the movies, stories, and drawings that other people have made 

 

 See what your students think!

National Geographic Provides Beautiful Pictures, Video, and More

National Geographic has a fantastic site where you can access pictures, videos, games and more.  There is so much to do on the site, I could literally go on forever.  But, here are some of my favorite features:


Daily News:

Stay on top of what's going on in our world with stories detailing new discoveries, fantastic locations, and much more.

Photo of the Day:

Browse through amazing pictures of animals, people and places.  See a new one every day and browse through past pictures and favorite picks.


Create puzzles from pictures:

Choose from a wide variety of pictures to make into jigsaw puzzles. This works great on an interactive white board!


Videos:

Watch videos on current events, animals, or world cultures. (I am SO jealous of the guy in this video!!)





NOTE: I was lead to this site by using Thinkfinity! (The site I highlighted yesterday!)

ABCya! (A-B-C, Yay!!)

My good friend introduced me to the site for today, and I have to say that it is, by far, one of my favorites.  ABCya! is a site that contains TONS of fun games that are truly educational.  You can choose your grade level (K-5) and then let your students choose from lots of fun activities; everything from grammar, to math, science, and technology.

The site is designed primarily for younger students, but I did find one game that could be used at the 6-12 levels.  Animation for Kids is basically an introduction to Flash animation.  Students using this game learn about the basics of using frames to create their very own animations.  The best part is that you can even save these animations to your computer (no signing into the site necessary) and play them back using Windows Media Player!  The possibilities for just this one activity are endless!  Students could create an animation to act out a scene from a book they read, or an important event in history, or the steps to do a math problem, OR what happened in an experiment in lab!!  Sorry, got a little excited there.  But just think about what they could do.  This is also great practice for learning to use Adobe Flash.

Alright, I've rambled on enough....go check out ABCya!

Multiplying the fun in multiplication facts

Happy Monday everyone!

But don't worry, I've got something to help spice up the math lesson for today!  Multipilcation.com has a fantastic collection of  fun flash games to reinforce multiplication skills.  Your students will love it!

Edheads, Science Potpourri!

Edheads is a super fun site that you can use on your whiteboard as a class activity, or allow your students to use on their own.  The activities available range from disgustingly realistic surgeries (yes, YOU perform them) to learning about simple machines and weather.  The activities are all animated, and while I think the site is geared towards middle school, I would say that any 4-12 grade  student will get a kick out it.  Actually, at 24 years old, I think I could sit and play with the site all day!  Hope you like it!

Tonematrix

The link today is for music teachers.  I could see this extremely simplistic tool being used by teacher and students alike to create beats, play with rhythm, and have tons of synthesized fun.

Here's Tonematrix.

The Reindeer Orchestra

Here's a link to help you have a few laughs the last days before vacation.

Reindeer Orchestra

Let me know how good you get. :)

The Magic Gopher

Ok, bear with me today.  This site may look all fun and games at first, but it could be a great math exercise.  Students practicing addition and subtraction skills could have a great time with this game, and students practicing higher math skills such as algebra can try to figure out how it works.  Not to mention the fact that the game is really fun!  Try it!

The Magic Gopher

Ben's Guide to US Government

Sorry I missed the last day of last week, what a busy day it was!  Anyway, I have the perfect site to make up for it: Ben's Guide to US Government for kids.  This is a fantastic site for K-12 students and teachers.  Here, you can find very accurate and useful information pertaining to the inner-workings of our government.  Games and a glossary can also be discovered here.  Enjoy!

Ben's Guide to US Government