Archive for the ‘Social Sciences’ category

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Virtual Volcano!

July 8th, 2010

Hi!  It’s Thursday, July 8, 2010 and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
Discovery Channel: Virtual Volcano

Age Range: 9 and up (Younger children may enjoy some aspects, with parental guidance.)

The Discovery Channel offers this terrific, free Virtual Volcano animation where you can learn about the geography and geology of our world, discover the three types of volcanoes, and build your own volcano and watch it erupt!

When you get to the site just click on “enter” to explore global tectonic plates and see where volcanoes are located throughout the world.  Use the menu to learn more including:

*Global Perspective – Find out where the “Ring of Fire” is located and see the layers that make up our planet including earth’s crust, upper mantle, lower mantle, outer core, and inner core.

*Volcano Types – Find out the differences between Stratovolcano, Cinder Cone, and Shield volcanoes.

*Inside a Volcano – See the Magma chamber and learn about the central vent, crater, fissures and more.

*Virtual Volcano – Build your own volcano! Adjust the gas and viscosity settings to build a volcano – and watch it erupt!  (Be sure to turn your speakers on.)

This engaging and fascination presentation is an adjunct to a Discovery Channel episode on the ancient city of Pompeii that was buried and destroyed by ash from an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Don’t miss this website exhibit of Pompeii: The Last Day, a companion to the broadcast.

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Posted in Science, Social Sciences

Media Awareness Games for Kids

May 27th, 2010

Recommended Website:
Media Awareness

Age Range: 9-14 (Grades 4-8, approximately)

ClickScholar Cie recommended this website that offers free, interactive, multidisciplinary, educational games that help kids use critical thinking skills to navigate their way through the volume of media, consumer, and pop culture influences they are exposed to everyday.

When you get to the site you’ll see a menu of games that include:

  • Co-Co’s AdverSmarts: An Interactive Unit on Food Marketing on the Web — Kids design a website for a popular cereal and learn about marketing techniques that foster brand loyalty and consumerism.
  • Privacy Playground: The 1st Adventure of the Three CyberPigs — Kids (ages 8-10) learn to detect marketing ploys, spam, and how to protect their personal information and avoid online predators. A Teacher’s Guide provides activities and handouts for classroom use that can be tweaked for homeschooling.
  • CyberSense and Nonsense: The 2nd Adventure of The Three CyberPigs (ages 9-12) — Learn the rules of netiquette, how to distinguish between fact and opinion, and how to recognize bias and harmful stereotyping in online content. A Teacher’s Guide gives info on “cyberbullying” with activities and handouts.
  • Jo Cool or Jo Fool — Take a CyberTour of 12 mock Web sites to test kids’ online savvy and surfing skills. Includes a quiz that provides food for thought about various Web issues they may encounter. Teacher’s Guide provides further activities and resources.
  • The Target is You!: Alcohol Advertising Quiz — A quiz for kids ages 11-14 to help increase students’ understanding of alcohol marketing on TV commercials, branded clothing, ads in magazines, websites, and sponsorships at sporting and music events. The quiz helps students understand how these marketing messages can influence their attitude toward drinking. Includes a companion activity to reinforce learning.
  • Allies and Aliens: A Mission in Critical Thinking — Increases students’ ability to recognize bias, prejudice and hate propaganda on the Internet and in other media. A Teacher’s Guide provides supporting discussion points and student activities.

All of the games are interactive, colorful, animated, and narrated presentations designed to engage kids in learning how to deal with the issues and challenges they encounter in all forms of media — especially when using technology tools like computers, video games, and smart phones, etc.

As always, parents should preview the games to determine suitability of content. These games, when used with parental guidance, can open the door to important discussions about Internet savvy and safety.

Enjoy!

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Posted in Social Sciences

Free Multi-Subject Lesson Snips

May 26th, 2010

Recommended Website:
Lesson Snips

Age Range: 5-13 (about grades K-8)

I am continuously AMAZED by the educational material available for free on the Net. While this is not a multi-media site, it does offer free, multi-subject lessons and worksheets for teachers in downloadable and printable pdfs. The lessons can be tweaked for homeschool use.

For the purpose of today’s review, I’m focusing on the Language Arts portion of the site – but you’ll be happy to know there are “Lesson Snips” for Math, Science, and Social Sciences as well.

When you get to the Language Arts page, you’ll see a menu of the available lessons covering topics such as:

  • Parts of Speech — including individual lessons on verbs, irregular verbs, nouns, proper nouns, pronouns, personal pronouns, intensive and reflexive pronouns, articles, prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, adjectives, infinitives, gerunds, participles, direct and indirect objects, interjections and more.
  • Reading — including identifying vowel sounds and sounds in word families, reading comprehension, sequencing, understanding plot, identifying the problem and solution, framing questions (who, what, where, when, how, and why), understanding narrative poetry, rhyming, and more.
  • Spelling, Writing, and Vocabulary — including basic sentence structure, capitalization, synonyms and antonyms, homonyms, using similes and metaphors, using the right tense, etc.

Click on any lesson and a new page opens with a lesson summary, the objectives, and the suggested grade range. Click on the “Get Lesson” button to download and print out the lesson and associated worksheets.

While there is a “schoolish” quality to these lessons, many of the suggested activities or the subjects covered would interest a vast array of learners and, with just a tweak, can accommodate a variety of learning styles.

If nothing else, review the menus in each subject category — you’re sure to find inspiration for introducing new ideas and topics to your kids.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you enjoy recommendations for outstanding resources, such as the ones above, you’ll love my book, Carschooling. Get your copy today!

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Posted in Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Sciences

Be a Web Ranger! (CSAW)

April 1st, 2010

Hi! It’s Thursday, April 1, 2010 and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
WebRangers

Age Range: 8-16 (Approximately. There is something for kids of all ages at this site. Non-readers will need assistance.)

A Maryland ClickScholar suggested this free online WebRanger program for kids with over 50 games and activities that teach about national parks, monuments, and historic sites, provided by the National Park Services.

This is a companion website to the real-time Junior Ranger program that kids can join at national parks throughout the U.S.

The timing here is terrific because National Parks Week is April 17-25, 2010 and during that time all 392 national parks are waiving entrance fees! Many of them are also offering educational and entertaining activities including historical reenactments, living history, guided tours, volunteer clean-up programs, and much, much more.

Not only that, but National Junior Ranger Day is Saturday, April 24, 2010 and children can participate in fun learning activities (that include history, art, science, & nature) to earn a Junior Ranger patch. Get the details and a list of National Parks offering Junior Ranger Programs HERE.

When you get to the WebRangers site, you’ll see a video screen that provides an overview of what’s available at the website. Click on “Enter.” A new page opens that offers you the opportunity to sign up to become a WebRanger or just visit the site without registering.

I suggest you click on “Visitor” on your first experience and just look around and play the activities (rated Easy, Medium, and Hard) in these categories:

  • People – Learn about U.S. Presidents, Thomas Edison, Paul Revere, George Washington Carver, Eleanor Roosevelt and more.
  • History – Discover arctic artifacts, set sail on a whaling voyage or a Navy war ship in 1812.
  • Nature – Discover dendrochronology (tell time with tree rings) and take The Puma Challenge!
  • Animals – Pack a virtual dog sled, protect bald eagles, and help baby sea turtles find the ocean.
  • Science – Test the water quality, virtually explore tidepools, find out what dinosaurs ate.
  • Puzzles – Break the alpha code names for national parks, send a message with a signal flag, go on a website scavenger hunt.
  • Parks – Play “Name That Park,” help a ranger, learn the 10 essentials for having fun and staying safe in parks.

Click on any topic and a new page opens with a menu of multi-media online games and activities that teach as they entertain. From simple match games to challenging quests, you won’t believe the amount of content delivered.

Book mark this site, you simply can’t see it all in one visit. This site earns a ClickSchooling Award (CSAW) for excellence.

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Posted in Science, Social Sciences

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Virtual Field Trip to Peeps Factory & A Peeps Curriculum

March 19th, 2010

Hi!  It’s Friday, March 19, 2010 and time for a Virtual Field Trip at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
Just Born Candy

Marshmallow Peeps are everywhere this time of year.  Ever wonder how they’re made?  At this website you can take a virtual tour through text and photographs of how this traditional Easter-basket candy confection is manufactured. (Not only that, you can also find out how Hot Tamales, Mike & Ike, and Zours are made.)

While the tour is offered by the company that makes Peeps, you’ll find better photos of their Peep manufacturing process at this Peeps website.

Now for those of you who wonder how Peeps can be educational, what follows is ClickSchooling’s Original Peeps’ Curriculum for your enjoyment. These links take you to the original ClickSchooling reviews with links to the curriculum content.

ClickSchooling’s Original Peeps’ Curriculum

Peeps Math – Includes Peeps-themed math lessons for grades K-8 and a recipe for making your own home-made version of Peeps.

Peeps Science – These websites document science experiments conducted on Peeps — some of which may inspire your own Peeps experimentations. The studies focused on basic attributes and reactions of Peeps to simple conditions and stimuli. You’ll also find a link to a “Peeps in Outer Space” online computer game.

Peeps Language Arts – Watch a terrific retelling of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in a photo-illustration using Peeps as the characters. Then enjoy some Peeps’ Haiku poetry.

Peeps Social Sciences – The first link in this archived review doesn’t work. But you won’t want to miss the other two links where you can see the amazing and funny results when you tell your co-workers that you hate Peeps. You can also test your knowledge of the history of Peeps by taking an online quiz.

Peeps Art – Learn to draw a Marshmallow Peep and get instructions for making an incredible, edible Peeps necklace!

I have been telling people for years that you can get a good education without textbooks and by using what you find in the environment around you. This just proves it!

I hope you’ll forward this email, in its entirety, to your friends and relatives and encourage them to subscribe to ClickSchooling. After all, it will make them smile and ClickSchooling is free. Besides, I think ClickSchooling’s Original Peeps’ Curriculum should go viral. Don’t you agree?

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Posted in Art, Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Sciences, Virtual Field Trip

Live Owl Cam & Much More!

March 18th, 2010

Hi!  It’s Thursday, March 18, 2010 and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:
SportsmansParadise: Owl Nest Cam

Age Range: All (Parents, as always, should preview to determine suitability of content.)

A BIG THANK YOU to ClickScholar Rena Hobbs who suggested this website.  I was going to save it until tomorrow’s Virtual Field Trip, but the action is just too incredible to make your students wait a single day longer!

This hunting and fishing website offers a live stream from a camera placed inside a Barn Owl’s nesting box. Thirty minutes ago, I watched the momma owl (named Molly) eat an entire rabbit – and I watched her do the same thing yesterday!  She is sitting on 5 eggs that are due to hatch any moment.  Once those owlets arrive – the action is going to really take off! There is a microphone in the nesting box as well – so you can hear the clucking, cooing, and other sounds made.

In addition to the owl show, the sportsman who owns this nesting box narrates what’s happening from time to time.  Yesterday, for example, he took questions from kids at an elementary school via Skype. He leaves notices of any planned presentations on the site. So keep a look-out for them.

You and your family can learn so much about nature and the circle of life by observing this view into a usually hidden world.  Don’t miss it!

By the way, if this peaks your kids interests in Barn Owls there is more information located on this site about them HERE.

Not only that, this site offers links to animal cams of deer, turkey, rabbit, crow, bear, raccoon, squirrel, doves and more.

Plus, there’s even a link to an underwater fish cam where you can see Perch, Largemouth Bass, and Sunfish (bluegill).

Bookmark this site (that earns a ClickSchooling Award for excellence) as you’ll want to return often!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Live Web Cam sites sometimes go dark inexplicably. If that happens, don’t panic and please don’t email me. :)   Simply close the window to the site and return at another time. Persistence will pay off. If it doesn’t, use the contact form at the website to see if they have an explanation, or contact your own tech service to see if there’s a problem with your computer interfacing with the site. One more thing, ClickScholars have been know to overwhelm a website, making it temporarily inaccessible. Should that happen, just keep trying and eventually you should get through.

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Posted in Science, Social Sciences

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