Brain Bashers

Where have you been, you may ask.  Well..... I don't have a good excuse, except I'm busy?????

     Anyway.... I've found another good site.  Since we're all about differentiating instruction this year, I thought I'd share a fun website and classroom tip.  We're all about differentiating instruction for those students who struggle and lag behind, but what about those who "get it" and finish classroom work quickly.  You can create what I call sponge activities. They don't have to be graded, but they should be engaging (absorbing) so that students will want to do them. It also "soaks up" some of that down time when students finish early.
     I have found a website that you can use as a sponge activity.  There are lots of puzzles, games, and logic activities that are good for stimulating their little brains and promoting problem solving and higher order thinking.  The site is BrainBashers .  You could easily add one or more of the puzzle links to your webpage or link the homepage and let students choose their challenge.  You could also print out some of the puzzles and have a sponge folder for students to turn to.
(And yes, I know I have to get more student computers into the classrooms for this to work. It's the reason that I am so busy and don't have time to add to this blog.  I am working on it.)

Spelling City

Everyone ready to start back up? One week and counting. Here is a helpful link to get you started this year.
If you teach spelling, you'll want to check out Spelling City. It is a free (there is a premium version for minimal cost) site that lets you post your spelling words and allows your students to test themselves, play games, and more. I have posted a link to some short "how to" videos that will help you get started. Even if you used Spelling City last year, check out the videos, as they have added some new features.

http://www.spellingcity.com/how-to-videos.html?utm_source=SpellingCity&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=SC%20NL%2009Aug10

National Archives search

Here is an interesting site that allows you to search the National Archives in a cool format.  It is a flash program that allows you to see a thumbnails of many documents that are collected together depending on your search.  If you search the Supreme  Court, you could go the route of D.C. buildings, the court itself, individual cases, justices, the nomination process, etc.  There are primary documents and photos from the archives, all digitized, at your service.  The flash format makes it fun to search and the fact that you can see thumbnails of each document makes searching easier, or at least easier to dig deeper.  Try it out.

Mitt and Minn's Illinois Adventure

Our classes have been busy learning about Illinois as they read Mitt and Minn's Illinois Adventure.  Our One School, One Book adventure has been a real learning experience.  Check out some of the additions to our wiki at http://www.whiteside115.wikispaces.com/  Please comment if you'd like.

Wolfram Alphra

Here is an awesome research tool I found called Wolfram Alpha.  http://www.wolframalpha.com/   It is a search engine, but not quite.  They call it a computational knowledge engine.  You can ask  a question and the info that comes up is pretty amazing.   It will give you the answer to your questions, plus other pertainent info.  The site does give you a few links to other sites, but not like google.  For math, it's pretty cool.  You can type in an equation, and it graphs it for you and shows the steps to solve.  (alternative to the graphing calculator)  They have an educators site which is worth looking at too.  http://www.wolframalpha.com/educators/  The educator's site has lesson plans, a video gallery with ideas on how to use it in the classroom, as well as other resources.  Watch the video from Stephen Wolfram on the homepage.  It's pretty amazing.  It's a very "smart" interface.  Check it out.

Thinkfinity and Earth Day

I've written about Thinkfinity before, but wanted to share some more.  They have an Earth Day page, with many lessons that pertain to the topic.  Ecosystems, Energy, What can you do to save the planet?, Polar regions, Earth Day and the Arts, Earth Day and poetry are just some of the lesson plans.
BTW, I will be attending a workshop on the ins and outs of Thinkfinity next week.  So I'll bring back lots of "how tos".
http://www.thinkfinity.org/EarthDayResources.aspx   

Graphic Organizers

I have come across a couple of great sites for online graphic organizers.  These sites are very similar to Kidspiration or Inspiration, if you have used that software.  This is online, though, so you don't have to load any software onto your computer.  The sites are collaborative, which means that you can invite others to work with you on your project.  They can be saved, printed, imported, exported, and embedded.  Bubbl,  Webspiration,  and Mind Meister are the three sites that I have found.  They do  require you to register as a user, but they are free.  Check them out.
Bubbl   http://bubbl.us/
Webspiration  http://www.mywebspiration.com/
Mind Meister  http://www.mindmeister.com/