Use the images posted in this feature for writing prompts, warm-up activities, drawing templates or as part of an artwork critique.
Test-speak and emojis are creeping into more and more areas of our life, even to the point that they’ve entered the dictionary as words in their own right. How many of these do you really know though? Try this fun game to see how many you either know or can guess and see how far you can make it on the path. Check out the interesting “Did You Know” bits as well. A score is found at the bottom! How did you score? [VIA]
Use the photos posted in this feature for writing prompts, warm-up activities, drawing templates or as part of a photo analysis.
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Are you bored? Looking for something to do? Do you want to learn or try some new and fun skills? If so, check out this cool little site — Show Off.
Show Off is the promotional site for a book by the same title that is a “how-to” book for kids. They promote over 208 pages with 1500 illustrations that walk you step by step through some interesting activities that can easily alleviate boredom and teach you some new life skills at the same time. I clicked through a few times and got activities like building a solar compass, learning how to skip a stone, how to dry and press flowers, and how to encode secret messages.
Each “lesson” in Show Off is about 4-5 panels long and even though the activities look easy, you will spend a good deal of time practicing and perfecting each one. So, what should you do today?
As I’ve gotten more and more requests for our managed iPad cart, along with it have come requests to add more and more apps. One of our Special Education Math teachers was looking for a fun game that would allow students to compete against each other in a way, but also against themselves but still be fun, engaging, and always different. Enter Alge-Bingo!
Alge-Bingo is a pretty straightforward bingo game, but instead of simply having the computer call out numbers to dot, the students need to solve simple algebraic equations to find their number. Some of the questions they might encounter are x + 3 = 5 or 8 = 16 – 4x, for example. Students solve the equation and then look for the number to dot. Once they have a Bingo they win!
Alge-Bingo allows for a good deal of diversity in the game itself to keep it new and interesting each time. In addition to having different equations and locations for solutions on the bingo card, students can choose which pattern they would like to solve to get their bingo. They can choose from nine options including traditional lines, corners, Z-shape, L-shape, or to get the most out of their practice a blackout game where they have to solve for all the numbers on the grid.
Alge-Bingo is available in the App Store for a small cost of $0.99 per unit, but it is well worth investigating for your iPads, or to suggest to students who might be in need of some extra help and would benefit from having it in the form of a fun game.
Alge-Bingo for Android Devices
Math vs. Zombies is a very fun math game for the iPad that pits students’ math skills against swarms of the undead. To defeat the approaching masses of zombies, students must correctly answer simple arithmetic problems that increase in difficulty as they progress through the levels. You can choose from addition, subtraction, multiplication or division for the problems, and set initial difficulty levels in Math vs. Zombies to help reinforce skills or challenge students.
Because of some cartoon violence (it’s really cheesy), some scary audio (groaning Zombies) and mild horror, Apple has rated Math vs. Zombies as appropriate for ages 9+. Please take this into consideration if you are planning on using this with your students. Any student in a higher elementary grade, or even a struggling high school student, would love Math vs. Zombies as a fun game activity or as reinforcement without making it seem like work!
If you’ve been looking at ways to try livening up your lessons, some alternate assessments, or if you have some of that ever elusive spare time in your lesson planning, you might want to take a peek at Playing History.
Playing History advertises itself as a source for historical games, but you’re not going to find old versions of Pong, Pac-Man, Mario, or even Final Fantasy here (thought you can still die of dysentery in the original Oregon Trail!). All the games on Playing History are centered on key events or concepts in history – primarily American and British – with the other social sciences mixed in throughout.
Close to 130 games are available and the front page of Playing History allows you to pinpoint areas of interest through a prominent tag cloud or you could search and/or browse all the games to find something appropriate for your classes. A free registration allows you to rate and review the games as well, but these are not limited to educators so take them with a grain of salt.
Make sure that you test any of the games on Playing History before using them with class to ensure they are appropriate for your students and that they will work on your systems. Just remember that any flash-based games will not work on Apple products like an iPad.
With so much in the news lately about the Second Amendment and gun rights as well as general questions about the Constitutionality of pieces of legislation and the general rights that Americans enjoy, students need to be made aware of what rights they do and do not have under the Constitution and Pocket Law Firm can help.
Pocket Law Firm is an iPad only app that according to iTunes lets students “decide if potential clients have a right, match them with the right lawyer, and win the case. The more clients you serve and the more cases you win, the faster your law firm grows!”
The gameplay is very straight forward and similar to other games where you have to perform tasks in a certain amount of time What is unique about Pocket Law Firm is that as a client enters the office to be paired with a lawyer, students have to determine whether or not they have a Constitutional right, given the case, and then they pair them with a lawyer who is an expert in that portion of the Constitution. Cases are won and lost based on the proper assessment of a right and pairing with a lawyer.
As you progress through Pocket Law Firm, the lawyers attain new skills in Constitutional law and new lawyers with different skills can be added. Each case, when won or lost, also includes an explanation of the actual rights as defined by the Constitution and sometimes corresponding cases for further research.
I highly recommend Pocket Law Firm as not only a fun game, but also as a tool to allow students to assess cases based on the Constitution and to study where in the US Constitution those rights are granted or protected.
You might remember the 24 game as a kid in school! You get a card with 4 numbers and you have to add, subtract, multiply or divide your way to a total of 24. With this app for iPad, iPod, and iPhone, you can have your class play without the use of the cards. The interactive nature of the app will definitely spark new interest in this game, as well as the ability to keep score and track fastest times!
The SimplePhysics app is available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod and is a great tool to have students work with some realistic physics as well as engineering. Students can build simple to complex structures (it advertises tree houses to Ferris wheels) through a blueprint interface then subject them to various tests in a game-like environment. Create structures that will withstand different forces, or simple create intricate designs. An added feature is the challenge mode where students have to create designs like rooftops and bridges to meet certain specifications while also remaining in a set budget for their project.
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