Just wanted to let everyone know that I will not be writing for a week or so- will be busy with house projects and sneaking in fun time with my husband. So everyone be safe, have fun and enjoy your summer!!
Well I am heading to the dentist this week for my 6 month cleaning-UGH! Not at all my favorite thing to do- even though I have a very nice dentist and typically have no “issues”. For some reason, though, when I sit in that dental chair and hear the drill from the neighboring room roaring like a lion, I turn into a scared little girl. My appointment started me thinking about the importance of educating our students about proper dental care. If dental care is not part of your Life Skills curriculum, it should be. To help you facilitate this I have identified a few sites that might be helpful in this endeavor.
The American Dental Association has some very good, educational activities, videos, stories and games. Animations is a teaching tool. Simply click on the tabs at the top of the file to watch and listen to the five major oral health topics. Games and Puzzles presents you with three games to choose from for students grades 1-3. I especially like “To Tell the Tooth” since it is a nice review of dental care. I just wish the audio support continued past the initial introduction. My students enjoy “Match-A-Tooth” since it is based on concentraion. You match dental pictures and this works very well on the SMARTBoard. The last option in and interactive story “Visit the Dentist with Marty” for Pre-K- 2nd graders. It is a nice story about a young boy going to visit the dentist. It provides audio support or you can turn that option off and read it yourself. This story presents well on the SMARTBoard and students enjoy turning the pages by clicking the flashing blue arrow (great opportunity to practice turn-taking skills!). I should mention that you do need Flash Player to use any of these options.
Mouth Power is a wonderful site that is offered in either English or Spanish and has some audio support. “Mouthie” is your guide through a laboratory with six different stations that allows students to “discover the power of a healthy smile.” Most of the activities at each station works interactively with the SMARTboard.
The Web Dental Office has a very good game section offering 8 different educational dental games (7 in English). The dental quizz could be used as a good pre and post test (touch the tube of toothpaste to indicate your answer). The snake game is a fun board-like game which also incorporates counting skills. So you might want to head on over there and check out this site.
Milton Bradley also has a fun game, Crocodile Dentist, for young children. It is a basic cause affect game that works well with the SMARTBoard since you simply touch a tooth in the crocodile’s mouth and hope you don’t pick the sore tooth or the croc will “chomp”!
I hope these sites help you when planning your dental lessons… and wish me luck with my dentist appointment! ENJOY!
I am proud and happy to report that I finally created a slide show with some pix from our last week or so of school. We had been learning about he Rainforest so with the help of Mr. Dan we made some Rainforest hot chocolate, dissected some frogs and oh yeah, lets’ not forget when Scottie recieved a Mass Mutual Academic Achievement Award-YEAH! So without further ado here is the Rock You slide show-ENJOY!
I attended a short hour long workshop this morning highlighting some of the new and improved Notebook 10 features and I was very impressed. I especially liked the Magic Pen (REALLY COOL!), the Page recorder and the Animation options- all features I know I’ll be using LOTS!
Here is another 4th of July interactive activitiy that works well with the SMARTBoard from applesfortheteacher.com. It’s a 4th of July word search that you can choose to use interactively online or print it out to complete it using paper ad pencil. I would use it both ways- print hard copies for each student to follow as together we found the words on the SMARTBoard. Either way it’s great since each time you play, there will be a different set of words associated with the 4th of July used to create the word search. Ten words are randomly chosen from the predetermined vocabulary word list. When you play the game online you are playing against the clock. It works well with the SMARTboard since you simply use your finger to highlight the letters in each word. ENJOY and Happy July 4th!!
I was watching the Today Show this morning (isn’t summer vacation glorious!!) and during a segment discussing “ways to keep kids’ school skills fresh this summer” I was reminded of Kids.aol.com and thought it worth sharing for those of you who might not as of yet explored this sister site of AOL. KOLis filled with many educational games and activities and has an awesome resource component which can be found under Homework Help. And don’t forget to check out KOL Jr. for younger aged students–it also has a Homework Help section filled with wonderful resources. ENJOY!
The latest AT Blog Carnival, Edtion #4 has been posted- thanks Lon! This latest edition is a grab bag format with 10 submissions (even one from me!!), each one filled with some very worthwhile information and definitely worth a look. I find this Carnival format to be very convenient and helpful- sort of like one stop shopping for some wonderful ideas! So if you want to learn about several AT topics head on over to the AT Blog Carnival– guaranteed you won’t be disappointed.
If you like books, especially children’s books, like I do, then you might want to check out three books available on Lookybook that have a 4th of July theme. All are great and present very well on the SMARTboard.
“Happy Birthday America” written by Mary Pope Osborne and illustrated by Peter Catalanotto.
“Little Miss Liberty” written and illustrated by Chris Robertson.
“ABC of America” written by Kim Bellafontaine and illustrated by Per-Henrik Gurth.
If you have never used Lookybook before you should register for a free user account as it gives you various options, such as saving books to your bookshelf, that otherwise would not be available to you. ENJOY!
One of my favorite websites is Hiyah.net. Developed and maintained by Sara- a mother of two young boys who encounter difficulty accessing a computer using a mouse. So this very talented, very generous mother created a series of educational software based on a variety of subjects for her sons. The most amazing part of this story is that Sara then created this website to make each and every one of these programs available to anyone who could benefit from them– yes they are all FREE! You simply download the program (some you can use online) and enjoy. I receievd an email today notifying me that Sara has added 7 new programs to this marvelous collection- she even has one for the 4th of July! So if you’re in the market for some free educational software geared towards students aged 18 months to 4 years (also perfect to address cause/affect objectives) head on over to Hiyah.net and be amazed! The download versions are made to run on Microsoft Windows compatible operating systems. The Play Online version works on Macs or PCs. I should also mention that these programs work great with the SMARTBoard. ENJOY and THANK YOU Sara!
