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So you think you are an expert at the child’s game Tic Tac Toe?  Now try it in 3D at MathsNet Interactive!  This game was designed in 3D to prevent the first player from always winning.  Instead of connecting three in a row to win, you have to connect two rows that meet at a right angle to form an “L”.  You are the blue marbles, and the computer plays the part of the red.  By clicking and dragging the 3D shape, you can rotate and spin the cube so that you can see your game board from all angles.  Check it out!  This would be a great follow-up activity to teaching about 3D solids in Geometry, not to mention it would also work well with an Interactive Whiteboard.

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If you have an interactive whiteboard (Promethean, SMART, or Polyvision), it’s always nice to know where you can find websites that work especially well with your board.  A site that may not be suitable to use with your class in the computer lab could be very valuable once you use it with your interactive whiteboard in a whole group instructional setting.

As I was searching for interactive whiteboard links, I came across this site by ETTC (Educational Technology Training Center).  The site has tons of links suitable for your interactive whiteboard.  But the best part of the site is that the links are broken down by elementary sites, middle school sites, and high school sites.  ETTC also separates the links by subject area: math, language arts, science, social studies, music, PE, art, software, tutorials, and other.

It’s the best list I have seen to date.  I looked at about 70% of the sites under “elementary” and was astonished that the sites were of high quality.   There is nothing worse than a hotlist of sites that suck.

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GAMES FOR THE INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD

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Welcome, Fall!  October is here! 

To get into the Halloween spirit, why not carve a pumpkin online?  There are two sites that I have found that are fun. 

 The first one located at theoworlds has the most options for your pumpkin.  It gives you to option to cut “freeform” or with straight lines only. When you connect the lines of your cut, then the piece automatically falls out of your pumpkin.  You can change the background picture, add your own message, print your pumpkin, save it to view later, or send it to your friends in an email.  Don’t forget you can turn on and off the spooky background music! As you can see from the picture above, the pumpkin is realistic instead of a cartoon.  I like it!

The second pumkpin site is called the “Pumpkin Simulator“.  You have a cartoon pumpkin to carve on, and when you are finished, you click, “done”.  At that time, a lit candle is added to your pumpkin and spooky music plays.  It doesn’t have any of the other options as the first pumpkin site, but it still provides entertainment!  Happy Halloween!

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Planet Science is a site from the UK, which sometimes causes educators in the USA to pass it by.  I don’t know why – many of the interactive, educational sites worth visiting come from the UK.  Ok, so they spell things a little differently and use the metric system (like everywhere else but here)!  Their sites still rock! 

Planet Science has interactive games for K-12 students.  I played a few of them and have enjoyed ALL of them so far.  The first one I tried was the Smoothie maker.  You can choose the ingredients to add to a blender to make your own smoothie.  When you’re done, start the blender!  The site will tell you how nutricious your smoothie is complete with how many grams of sugar and how many carbs you just drank in your smoothie.  The best part is the “Smoothie” song the site plays as it mixes your drink.  So much fun!

Next I tried Planet 10: World Builder (because Earth can’t last forever).  The student creates a new planet by choosing many, many different things such as: size, orbit, atmosphere, shape, moons, terrain, organisms, distance from sun, etc.  After you make all of your choices, you launch your planet into the atmosphere and see if it “survives” in space.  After a lot of careful planning, I managed to burn up all the living organisms, evaporated my atmosphere, and got hit by a comet.  Disaster.  But so much fun!

Planet 10: Solar System is also a nice resource.  Students can zoom into different planets to learn more about them.  Fun!  It has better graphics than Google Sky, but I’m not sure if the information is as detailed as Google Sky.

The site also has a list of science games on the Internet that are worth looking into as well as a parent page to get them involved. I love this site! Thumbs up from me!

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Check out this new site called Statetris!  This online game is very similar to the old favorite game called Tetris where you have to fit falling geometric shapes together as they fall from the sky.  Statetris is similar, only instead of geometric shapes, you can use states for the United States map, or countries for continent maps.  How much fun would this be to use with an Interactive Whiteboard (like a Promethean board)?  Imagine how much fun it could be reviewing for a geography test with this site.  Fun, fun!

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Okay – I know I feature a lot of websites, but maybe it’s because I know how hard it is to get software approved for classroom use in the schools today. I came across this website called “Build Your Wild Self” put out by New York Zoos and Aquariums. The site starts you will a human boy or girl template, and allows you to change different parts of your body to animal parts. Why would you want to do this? Besides being fun for children and adults, teachers can incorporate this into their classroom for creative writing or science. Just think: Let students create themselves as an animal, print it out, and then write about it. Students can explain how their new animal body parts allow them to survive in the chosen habitat. Or how about different writing topics to go along with this such as:

• Explain how your life would be different if you came home from school looking like this.
• What sports or activties would you be good at now that you are part animal?
• Research the different animals that you picked and why you would want to be like that animal.

Another great site is Switch Zoo. This site used to be entirely free, but over the last year or so they started packaging the “game” for sale on CD. I have to admit, this is one of my biggest pet peeves as a teacher. You find a great, free site to use with your class, and as soon as you make it part of your routine, the site becomes a paid site. Anyway, some features of this site are still free (just enough to hook you). I had my class create a new animal, print it out in color, and then build a habitat out of clay to match their new animal. Have your class:

1. Create a name for the new animal
2. Create a habitat
3. Explain how the animal adapts to survive in the habitat
4. Explain what the animal eats, how it gets food, and how it protects itself.
5. Write a creative story about the new animal:
   1. “My New Pet”
   2. “A Strange Day at the Zoo”

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Social studies lends itself so easily to online sites! I already mentioned my favorite online history game, The Pyramid Challenge, in a previous post. Any teachers, parents, or students who are interested in social studies for research or interest should definitely check out these sites. First, head over to National Geographic’s site for educators. Even though the ads on the right-hand side of the site can be a bit annoying, it has a a great selection of tools including: current events, lesson plans, maps and photos, and professional development. They have a wonderfully detailed online activity on Jamestown and life in 1607. As you click through Jamestown, you’ll find links to music, recipes, and maps. It gives a small glimpse into what life was like at that time. Clicking under the “maps and photos” section, you’ll find a link to Xpendition Atlas, which has a wide selection of maps in black and white perfect for printing and copying for classroom use.

Just as interesting is National Geographic’s site on environments. There are section to explore such as habitats, natural disasters, global warming, and goiing green. Who wouldn’t want to make lightning strike or unleash an avalanche? I do!

Finally, check out the link to mywonderfulworld, which was created to “give the kids the power of global knowledge”. There are separate sections for teachers, kids, and parents. You can find links to educational travel programs for students or take virtual tours of any continent you wish to visit. Looking for lessons based on the geography standards? Look no further! Do you want to test your global IQ? Here’s your chance.

If you teach social studies or are just fascinated by it, you’ll definitely find these sites worthwhile.

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There are so many websites, and so little time. How do you find websites worthy to share in your class?  First, network!  If you find a good site, post it to your del.icio.us account, an online website where you can share your favorite websites with anyone.  Here are some of my favorites:

1.  While bbc.co.uk is located out of England, it has several content based games that range from simulations to trivia to drill-and-practice.  One of the my favorite game-based simulation is The Pyramid Challenge, where you are playing the role of the head-of-state in charge of building the king’s pyramid.  You need to make several decisions: location of the pyramid, what building materials to use, how many workers to employ, and so on.  If you make the right decisions, your pyramid is constructed.  It’s not as easy as it looks, and you learn many facts along the way.  However, BBC has the best games and simulations for middle school and high school that I have seen as of yet.

 2.  Another site of interest is Learning Vocabulary Can Be Fun!  The site has several clean, motivational games to help kids learn new vocabulary words.  ESL learners can use this site to reinforce new words and practice English in a fun way.

3.  Scholastic is well-known for their book orders, but they also have an extensive website of lessons and games for all subject areas and ages.  While the games are advertised for Pre-K through 12, I have consistently heard from middle and high school students that the games seem too young for their classes.  Check it out and be the judge.