Posts Tagged ‘fun’

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Museum Quality History Lessons & Activties!

June 6th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Thursday, June 6, 2013 and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Show Me

Age Range: 8-14 (approximately, but there’s something for everyone here)

This website offers an incredible array of games, stories, activities, and virtual tours about historical topics gleaned from museums and galleries throughout the United Kingdom that are engaging and fun.

When you get to the site just click on the icon menu to dive right in and explore topics such as:

  • Ancient Civilizations
  • Anglo-Saxons
  • Vikings
  • Romans
  • Tudors
  • Victorians
  • Science & Technology
  • And much more!

Click on any topic and a new page opens with a menu of offerings related to that topic that include interactive, multi-media games and activities that teach history as they entertain.  These items are linked to the websites of museums and galleries in the UK where exhibits related to the topic are on display. You simply won’t believe the variety of information and make-and-do ideas to extend the learning.  Plus there are links to related sites if you want to explore the topic further.

This site provides enough material to satisfy any world history curriculum in a way that’s much more engaging than textbooks.

 

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English Games, Activities, & Worksheets!

June 5th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Wednesday,  June 5, 2013, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

FunEnglishGames.com

Age Range:  5-10 (grades K-5 approximately, with parental supervision)

This ad-supported website offers free English language games, activities, worksheets, quizzes and more! Designed for classroom and ESL teachers, you’ll find learning activities and resources that can easily be used for home learning.

When you get to the website, you’ll see a brief introduciton and some highlighted features.  Use the menu at the top of the page to access:

Games – Play interactive games that help kids learn and improve upon reading, writing (including debate!), grammar, vocabulary, and spelling skills.

Activities – Enjoy a line-up of fun online language arts games based on familiar board games and television game shows.

Worksheets – Get printable worksheets and activity pages that reinforce language arts skills.

Quizzes – Test your knowledge on grammar, parts of speech, spelling, and more.

You’ll also find videos that  include songs, nursery rhymes, and short instructional clips for learning English.

Because this website contains randomly generated advertisements, parents (as always) should preview the site and supervise all Internet activity.

 

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Math Engineering Lessons & Activities for K-12

June 3rd, 2013

Hi!  It’s Monday, June 3, 2013 and time for Math at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Teach Engineering

Age Range: 5-18 (Designed for grades K-12; the majority of the material is for grades 3 and up.)

Get free, open-ended, hands-on lessons and activities to stimulate your students’ interest in math and science through engineering.

As explained at the website, “engineers have a hand in designing, creating or modifying nearly everything we touch, wear, eat, see and hear” in the real world. The free K-12 engineering curricula at this website integrates math, science, and technology through exploration of the “built world” around us so that it’s relevant to the lives of young people.

The idea here is to encourage students to pose questions about “why things work” and then gain skills and use their imaginations to create innovations that improve the world for everyone.

When you get to the website click on “Browse” on the menu to find curricula sorted by:

*Subject Areas – Each with numerous units in Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, Number and Operations, Problem Solving, Reasoning and Proof and lots of science content as well.

*Curricular Units – These theme-based learning experiences are composed of multiple lessons designed to take place over several weeks in a classroom environment. There are units on asteroid impact, bridges, cells, energy, floaters and sinkers, marine mapping, natural disasters, rockets, simple machines, weather and more.

*Lessons – Find hundreds of lessons that meet content standards on topics that include Air Pressure, Ampere’s Law, Art in Engineering, Animals in Engineering, Friction, Magnetics, Mars, Rivers, Rocks, Paper Airplanes, Water, and much more.  

*Activities – In my opinion, this is the place to start because the stand-alone, hands-on, fun experiments are sure to engage your kids’ interest and may springboard you to further learning through the lessons and units mentioned above. Activities (that include a materials list and instructions) cover a range of possibilities such as the exploration of acids and bases, designing a bicycle helmet, learning about kidney filtering, investigating Ohm’s Law, playing “Rock Jeopardy,” making Yogurt Cup Speakers and more. 

All of the lessons and activities include the estimated time it takes and the approximate cost for the materials.

 

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American Folklore Stories & Lessons

May 22nd, 2013

Hi!  It’s Wednesday, May 22, 2013 and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

American Folklore

Age Range: All (Note: As always, parental supervision required to determine suitability of content.)

This website provides a free archive of American folktales, myths, legends, fairy tales, superstitions, weatherlore and other stories. You can read them online or print them to use offline – and you can listen to some of them via podcast.

When you get to the site, you’ll see a brief introduction and some featured stories. You can click on the featured links or use the menu at the top of the home page that includes:

*Tall Tales – Meet Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, Brer Rabbit, and more.

*Myths & Legends – Enjoy stories about folk heroes such as Bigfoot Wallace, Davy Crockett, Casey Jones and more.   *Ghost Stories – A selection of stories about things that go bump in the night.

*Urban Legends – Incredible stories with bits of plausibility that spread quickly through a society.

*Folk Tales – Stories or legends passed down from one generation to another in the oral tradition.

*Fables & Fairy Tales – A wide variety of stories – some will be very familiar, some not-so-much.

*Campfire Stories – Stories and songs that include tales for the littlest campfire kids to scary stories that will give teens and adults goosebumps.

*Children’s Stories – Enjoy whimsical children’s bedtime stories, American folk songs, and nursery rhymes.

*Animal Stories – Fun fables starring cats, dogs, crows, chickens, hummingbirds, bears, coyotes, sea serpents – and even Sasquatch aka Bigfoot.

You’ll also find Canadian, Mexican, African-American, Latin-American, Asian-American, European-American, and Native American folklore. 

If you click on “Teacher Resources” located near the bottom of the vertical menu on the left side of the home page, you’ll find links to folktale-themed lessons. Some of them are free, some require a fee. Unfortunately, not all of the links were working when I tested them. Don’t let that deter you from exploring the stories archived at the site. :)

 

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Virtual Tour of Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory

May 10th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Friday, May 10, 2013 and time for a Virtual Field Trip at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Celestial Seasonings Tea Company

Age Range: 8 and up (with parental supervision)

You may have tried some of the unique tea blends created by Celestial Seasonings such as “Mandarin Orange Spice,” “Lemon Zinger,” and “Sleepytime.” At their website, you can take a virtual tour of their tea processing plant in Boulder, Colorado to see how they create their tea blends. Watch a series of five, short, narrated video clips (it may take a minute or two for the videos to load) with brief text that explains how Celestial Seasonings:

  • Selects the ingredients for their tea blends from locations worldwide
  • Tests the ingredients for quality
  • Cleans, mills, refines and blends the tea ingredients
  • Bags the tea for individual servings, and packages the tea for distribution

You’ll also discover fun things to do and see at the factory and gift shop in Boulder, Colorado.

 

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How To Be A Writing Mentor to Your Child

April 24th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Wednesday, April 24, 2013, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Wonder Farm: Become A Writing Mentor To Your Child

Age Range: Varies (written with homeschool parents in mind)

After twenty-plus years of coaching homeschool parents, I know that one of the most challenging subjects or skill sets to help children learn is writing. Enter Patricia Zaballos, a veteran homeschool mom, writer, and educator who values “child-led, passion-driven, project-based learning, gently encouraged by enthusiastic adults.” For the past 12 years, she has facilitated writer’s workshops for homeschooled children, and teaches homeschool parents how to make writing more “fun, authentic, and meaningful for their kids.”

Patricia writes a terrific blog called “Wonder Farm” that currently features a free series on how to “Become a Writing Mentor To Your Child.”  It is filled with thought-provoking commentary and practical albeit unconventional suggestions and ideas that will ease your anxiety and inspire your desire to help your kids learn to write. There are 5 installations so far that include:

  • Part 5:  Grammar By Ear
  • Part 4:  That Niggling Thing Called Spelling
  • Part 3:  Three Points from a Mentor
  • Part 2:  They Know Stuff
  • Part 1:  Teacher or Mentor?

When you get to the website you’ll see the current blog post, “Grammar By Ear.” Read it.  It may change your perspective and open a world of writing freedom and fun to you and your family. You’ll especially enjoy the free tips at the end of the article for helping kids learn grammar and punctuation.

Take the time to explore the archived blog posts, and use the menu to learn more about Patricia and her family, their homeschool journey, her book, and more

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