Digital Drama Station

Students loved expressing themselves in the Drama Station this year! Students put their 21st century skills to use, collaborating to write scripts retelling stories and then creating puppets and backgrounds (using Power Point), to perform their dramatic creations. This article, Make Your Own Animation, will give you and your child ideas for using technology to create your own digital presentations. Most of the students are already familiar with Pivot (one of the suggested FREE programs available for a project like this). Pair this program with some script writing and you will have a fantastic and educational rainy day (or any day) activity!

More Sites....

These two sites should keep the children academically entertained for quite a bit!

Gamequarium Language Arts lets the children practice spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary! Lots of links to a wide array of games. You can also go to a more general area of Gamequarium for links to other educational activities.

Another fabulous site is Mr. Nussbaum. WOW! LOTS of links to an amazing number of games! I can't wait to share this one with my children! It has activities for students in grades K-8!

As always, have fun and let me know what you think!!

Summer Packet

I have noticed that the summer packet for rising 3rd graders asks the students to use Education City. CHES did not renew the "at home" portion of this site. The 3rd grade teachers created the packet and most certainly did not realize that Education City would no longer be available. I will look for sites that would be helpful to maintain skills and post them on this blog throughout the summer. Focus on finishing the paperwork and use whatever educational sites you find to supplement. As the parent of a rising 3rd grader, I plan to document my child's use of the computer although it will not necessarily be Education City. I haven't checked it out recently, but I know at one time there was a free trial available to Education City. You also may want to check out Study Island and take advantage of the "Try Us Out" section. Study Island is what the students in grades 3-5 use (and even what they use at the secondary school).

Having recommended those sites, I have found one called Carrot Sticks. It is a math program that provides practice with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (all are free until the end of June - addition is free all the time). Students create an avatar and can compete with other students to quickly solve math problems. If competition is not your child's style, there is PLENTY of practice. The program assesses skill and moves your child to different levels based upon his/her ability and is for students in grades 1-5. Check it out!

If you find any cool sites, let me know so we can all take advantage. :0)