BrainPop: GameUp

BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. both have a new section called Game Up! They have improved upon many of their educational games, and in most cases, partnered with different foundations to provide fun learning games for kids. Clicking on each category (Science, Health, Reading & Writing, Social Studies, Math, and Arts & Tech) brings up more games available, but here are a few favorites:

3rd grade teachers! There is a Simple Machines game that kids explore the different basic simple machine properties to help a character named Twitch get around the museum at night. 

K-2 teachers! There is a game called "Chain Game" that has students replace sounds in words to make new words. There are different letters and sounds to choose from for various levels.

3-4 teachers! There is a game called "Treefrog Treasure" that my kids in summer school couldn't get enough of. Students make a frog bounce from place to place, and have to have him land on certain parts of a number line involving fractions. The levels get tricky and involve some problem solving and fraction thinking!

While these are all games on BrainPop Jr., check out BrainPop also for more games at higher levels. 

ScootPad

I have been hearing so many great things about ScootPad from teachers and bloggers that I just had to tell you about it right away!

ScootPad is a great common core practice website that...

1) is FREE!

2) Has NO ads

3) Students can sign in from home, from a computer or mobile device (all the apps are free too, for iPad, Android, etc.)

Here's a video for teachers that explains how it works:

Basically, Scootpad is a site where students can go to practice all of the Common Core standards for math and reading.  The site is adaptive, so students can move through the standards at their own pace.  You can also modify the content to meet the needs of specific students!  As a teacher, you will be able to see data {a lot of graphs!!} about how each student is performing and can also get detailed email updates about students' progress.

A fellow blogger, EduKate & Inspire, uses it with her students, and this is what she loved about it:

"1) Rewards... of course!  I am typically not a big fan of having a lot of incentives for students {in my opinion, intrinsic motivation is always the best}, but they sure were a great motivator on Scootpad. As students complete practices on Scootpad, they earn coins.  In your teacher account, you can create rewards and specify the amount of coins that each reward is worth.  You can use tangible items like candy or a pencil, or set other rewards like lunch with the teacher or show and tell {I do not do show and tell in second grade, so this was a highly coveted prize!}  Parents can also set rewards for their child to earn at home. Here is a screenshot of my rewards page:

2)  Social media... students love being able to connect with their friends on Scootpad!  They can send messages to each other, choose a smiley face to indicate how they are feeling for the day, pick out their own avatar, check out their news feed (updates about messages from friends and coins they have earned), look at the class wall (with posts from the teacher), and check out the leader boards. One nice feature is that the messages are pre-selected, so students can't actually type anything to each other {otherwise, they'd spend all day sending messages instead of practicing!}.  As the teacher, you CAN type messages to students, which is great for encouragement.  Here is a screen shot of the cute messages students can send to friends:

3) Badges:  Students can earn badges to show off their hard work!  I love the 100% Ninja badge :)"

Check out ScootPad by clicking the button below! 

Foreign Language Activities

Our students are lucky to be exposed to a foreign language everyday, but with summer approaching, maybe parents and students are looking for something new and fun to practice with! Here are some learning games and activities... and not all of them are for Spanish! ;-)

Learn Mandarin

Sign Language

Hello World

Scholastic Spanish Games

Who knows, maybe you'll be inspired to learn a language yourself!

Math Treasure Chest & Sumdog

A couple of fun math resources this week to add to your resource collection!

First up is a website that would be great for the SmartBoard. It has "treasure chests" of different math manipulatives that you can use and adapt within your lesson on the spot. For example, clicking on the Money treasure chest allows you to stamp a certain amount of coins. Then you can have students count them, and it has an answer box that will show how much money you have drawn. There are also pattern & attribute blocks, a spinner, place value, fractions, and more.

I came across Sumdog in a blog post by Run Teacher Run. Here's what she has to say about the site and how she's using it with students:

"The website is called Sumdog, and the games are all FREE!!  There are 20 different games for the kids to pick from and there are 10 levels of skills.  As the teacher, you can pick specific skills or levels or just have them pick what they want. 

The kids have taken off and are playing at home, and beg to play at school!  Did I mention the games are FREE!?!?!  There is a teacher fee only if you want reports based on your students' progress and responses to questions. 


Motivation for the students is that it is game oriented, they get points for each game, and they also earn coins to upgrade their profile and add clothes to their avatar. As they earn points they are also able to earn "animal" status that depends on their point balance.  There are so many ways to keep them motivated!  

Motivation for the teachers is that they kids LOVE it!!  Also, they are able to do it at home and continue practicing their math skills beyond their classroom.  I also love that I can change the skills based on my students.  It is extremely easy to differentiate their skills on the program and add/subtract skills as needed.  The reports are also AMAZING for creating math groups.  I know many people are going toward the math workshop model, and this helps identify student strengths and weaknesses as you go through the classroom.  That data is great to see what they are capable of on the independent level!  I love it!"


Okay, I know that was a lot of reading, but hopefully her testimony will inspire you to check it out!

Spring Cleaning & iPad Resources

After posting about backing up last week, I found a blog post on Scholastic.com called Virtual Spring Cleaning - A Five Step Plan. I thought it gave some great tips for cleaning up some of the virtual clutter that is on your computer, as well as help to get organized and stop wondering "where did I put that file again?" Here's a screen shot on how the blog author organizes her files:

On another note, a fellow tech teacher shared a YouTube channel with me called iPadagogy. The channel is dedicated to instructional videos of useful apps for the iPads. For example, I found a video that explained Popplet Lite, which is an app we have here at school. 

Finally, McGraw-Hill Education is offering some of their Everyday Math apps for free this week!

Earth Day

To celebrate Earth Week next week, here are some fun activities for your classroom!

Kaboose has various Earth Day activities, including games, craft ideas, a slideshow, word play printables, and more, including a game called Michael, Michael Go Recycle!

Don't forget that BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. are great resources as well.

Discovery.com also has some Earth Day resources, such as games, quizzes, and puzzles that are a bit more advanced for older students. 

Also check out Meet the Greens, a site for kids about looking after the planet.

And a few more:

EcoKids

Energy Star Kids

Habitat Heroes

Recycle Roundup

And for SmartBoard lessons, the Smart Exchange has a variety of options to use and adapt as you need. Go green and Happy Earth Day!

Poetry Month

Since April is poetry month, here are some fun resources to bring into your classroom to get your students excited about poetry!

Shel Silverstein's website has activities for kids and a teacher/parent section with ideas, lessons, activities, and more. 

This blog post has hands-on project ideas that are creative and unique- like this newspaper blackout poem.

Squidoo also put together a list of 12 of the best poetry websites for kids- all of which are interactive and free! They look like so much fun!

Pict-Lits is also a very cool site. It is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords they provide in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture- but that "right" place is all up to you! Below is an example pict-lit and what it looks like when you are creating your own.

Wonderopolis & Draw a Stickman

It's pretty fitting for this blog that there is actually a website out there called Wonderopolis! (Thanks Jasmin for sharing!) Each day, they post a new "wonder", which is just a fun fact or "wonder" of the day. The topics cover a wide variety of things, from "what is an aglet?" to "how much rain can a rain cloud hold?". The daily wonders could spark classroom discussion, a writing prompt, fit into your science/social studies unit.. the possibilities are endless! You can also view past wonders or search for topics if you are looking for something in particular. 

Draw a Stickman is another fun website that would be a fun story starter or introduction to digital storytelling. It is an interactive adventure that reminds me of one of my favorite children's books, Harold and the Purple Crayon. You start by drawing a stick man, and then follow him through an adventure that you add things to the picture as it unfolds. Would definitely make a great SmartBoard activity! It could serve as a writing prompt also - stop the story at any point and ask the students where they would take it from there, or how would they problem solve the situation?

Fun with Web 2.0

Looking for a little bit of fun amidst all of the testing? Check out some of these fabulous websites and give your kids a brain break while still learning!

Teach Hub posts weekly video writing prompts. Each week they post a video and then offer suggestions for writing prompts based on grade level, K-2, 3-5, etc. What a fun way to get your students writing! Some video examples include ones for Leap Year, Groundhog Day, the Lorax, and yes, even Angry Birds. You could have it be a writing activity that you do once a week as they post them or once in awhile. 

As an example, here is a Muppets video writing prompt:

Wordia is a new website that you can play the games they have, or create your own (it is very easy to create your own vocab or spelling game!) There are spelling, geography, science, and other subject areas to choose from. For one "Spell it Right" game, they used children from around the world to say the words. I thought that was very unique and would provide another opportunity to bring cultural awareness into your classroom.

I also really like WeGiveBooks.org. While the site does require teacher signup (and then you could post your login for students to use), I think it is well worth it. Created by the Pearson Foundation, We Give Books has several leveled books that students can read on the computer. Every time they complete a book, a book is donated to under privileged children. You could read the books whole-class on the SmartBoard or use it as a center. And, to tie some math in, you could create a chart to show how many books your class has donated to a great cause!

   

If you're looking for a way to perk up your students before testing, I found this cute printable note, and others here. 

ICE Ideas

This week I have the opportunity to attend the ICE conference, and after my first day there I have already found new fun things and heard great ideas! Here is a snippet of just a few of the cool tools I have discovered.

My Storymaker, from the Carnegie Library, allows users to create a story entirely online. The user can choose characters and the character's goal for the story. The settings and other items for the story are added to the picture by simply clicking on them. The author can also choose emotions, actions and interactions for the characters, which the characters then act out in the picture. As the characters do this, the text of their actions appears below them. This text can be edited and the final story can be printed.

Actors from the Screen Actors Guild Foundation read books aloud at Storyline Online. Some favorite stories include Rainbow Fish, Stellaluna, A Bad Case of Stripes, The Polar Express, and more!

BrainPop & BrainPop Jr. are two of my favorite resources for students, but one ICE session is taking it to the next level. Check out this PDF (BrainPOP for the IWB Handout) for ideas to use your SmartBoard with BrainPop - it's more than watching the videos and taking quizzes!

I also found an awesome SmartBoard resource called Out Smart 'Em. It is a collection of Notebook files and websites separated by subject area that you could instantly (or with a few adaptations) integrate into your lessons.

I also like the ideas presented on this 21st Century Literacy website. There is an idea for each grade level- check them all out though, it may spark an idea that you can adapt and do with your students!

Those 5 websites are only a few of the many ideas I have learned about... look for more to come soon! 

Laptop Tips & Tricks

In case you missed it at our Institute Day, this week I am sharing some tips & tricks to use your laptop more efficiently. First, here is the QSG passed out at the Laptop Tips & Tricks session.

Some of the additional resources and websites included in the QSG are below:

Atomic Learning:  http://www.atomiclearning.com/k12/home

Teach Parents Tech: http://www.teachparentstech.org/

Under 10 Minutes: http://www.undertenminutes.com

Learn it in 5: http://www.learnitin5.com

I also found a website called F Symbols that has shortcuts to make different symbols, like ÷, ≤, ≥, and even !

And for fun, PBS Kids Lab has over 60 games to play!