Posts Tagged ‘play’

Learn to Draw with Jan Brett

April 16th, 2022

It’s Saturday, April 16, 2022, and time for Art at ClickSchooling!

The World of Jan Brett

(www.janbrett.com/index.html)

Grades K-12, with parental supervision

Visit the world of American illustrator and writer of children’s picture books, Jan Brett. At this website, visitors will find a treasure trove of activities for hours of fun. In addition to loads of educational activity pages to print out, there are tons of printable coloring pages, fun games to play online or print out, and cards to either email or print.

One of the highlights of this website is the video art lessons. Join Mrs. Brett as she teaches visitors to draw some of the characters from her books such as:

  • A dolphin
  • A chick
  • A hedgehog
  • A creature of the deep
  • A bear
  • An elephant
  • Dots and Stripes – Two African Animals
  • A bunny
  • Gingerbread Baby, Friends and Peppermint Puppy
  • Horses
  • African Okapi
  • A lion
  • A polar bear
  • A stork
  • A Siberian Husky
  • A viper fish
  • A train

And much more. You will want to bookmark this website and come back often to enjoy all that is available here.

Children’s Classics Audio Books

April 6th, 2022

It’s Wednesday, April 6, 2022, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Librivox

(librivox.org/search?primary_key=0&search_category=genre&search_page=1&search_form=get_results)

All grades, with parental supervision

Now that the weather outside is getting nicer here in the Northern Hemisphere, send the kids outside with some audio books! They can perch in a tree, skip rope, start a garden, have a little picnic, or even play hopscotch while listening to these wonderful classics.

Or keep a supply of titles handy for those days when you’re unable to read to them. With hundreds of completed works listed under the “Children’s Fiction” or “Children’s Non-Fiction”categories, there is more than an entire year’s worth of bedtime stories and read-alouds here, including the works of such well-known authors as:

  • Aesop (Fables)
  • Alcott, Louisa May (Eight Cousins, Little Women, etc.)
  • Baum, L. Frank (Oz books)
  • Burnett, Frances Hodgson (Little Lord Fauntleroy, Little Princess, Secret Garden, etc.)
  • Carroll, Lewis (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, etc.)
  • Collodi, Carlo (Adventures of Pinocchio, available in English and Italian!)
  • And many, many more.

Click any title to see a brief synopsis before downloading/listening. But that’s not all! Parents may like to browse the other categories as well:

  • Adventure
  • Animals
  • Biography
  • History
  • Spy Stories
  • Teen/Young Adult
  • and many others

This site can be searched for a specific book by title and author as well.

Note: There is an overlap between these books and the ones you would find in Project Gutenberg or Archive.org. This is because Librivox allows both of these sites to house their entire collection of completed works. However, Librivox maintains the best-catalogued and most easily searchable list of these titles. Also, only Librivox itself includes a brief synopsis for each completed title, lists the works currently in progress, allows you to request email notification upon completion of desired books in progress, allows you to request specific titles, and allows you to participate in the recording and editing process and their lively forum as well.

Additional Note: This review focuses on the “Children’s” books. The rest of this site is not specifically geared for children, so parental preview and guidance is, as always, advised. Books are continually being added to this collection, so bookmark it and return often.

NOTE: As always, parents should help select material appropriate for each child.

Explore Math with Music!

March 28th, 2022

PhilTulga.com: Music Through The Curriculum – Ingenious Music & Math Activities!

(www.philtulga.com/resources.html)

All Grades, with parental supervision

Phil Tulga is a professional musician and music instructor. He has developed educational programs that weave music through the curriculum in almost every subject. As a complement to his music programs, Phil has developed a series of FREE, interactive math and music activities that are available on his website.

When you get to the site you will see a menu that includes:

  • Math and Science – Phil takes popular math manipulatives and enhances them with rhythm and music. You’ll find:

  • Unifix Cube Drum Machine – This shows students how famous composers have used repeating patterns to create music. Students can make their own rhythm or drum patterns with popular Unifix cubes.
  • Musical Fraction Bars – Mathematicians like Pythagoras discovered that musical pitches are derived from fractions. In this activity, students compose and play their own songs using Musical Fraction Bars. Not only that, you’ll find instructions for how to build a homemade musical instrument that is based on these fractions.
  • Pattern Block Rock – Song melodies are patterns of short and long sounds. In this activity, students compose and play their own rhythmic songs using geometric shapes.

After exploring the math activities check out the “Language Arts” section. Get Phil’s tips for how to encourage a love of reading in your child. Then, use the innovative “Cucumber Pickle Machine” to show your kids how to make rhythmic meters by combining two and three-syllable words! Phil uses the musical score of “Peter and the Wolf” to teach storyline components complete with story maps!

Don’t miss “Homemade Instruments” where you’ll find directions for making your own panpipes, water bottle xylophone, tubular Glockenspiel, and melodic tube drums!

Lots of Language Arts Learning!

March 16th, 2022

Mr. Nussbaum: Language Arts

(mrnussbaum.com/lang-arts)

Grades PreK-9, with parental supervision

This ad-supported website is a massive archive of all kinds of learning activities and resources for every school subject. For this review, we are focusing on the huge variety of free language arts games, printables, reading comprehension activities, grammar editing, spelling help, and other resources.

When you get to the site, you will see a list of activities that include:

  • Language Arts Games – Play games that teach sentence and paragraph editing, spelling, punctuation, and writing basics.
  • Online and Printable Reading Comprehension Worksheets – Read a paragraph or essay on any topic you select and answer multiple-choice questions about it. Use either the online or offline versions. Topics include the American Revolution, the Silk Road, Galaxies, Lewis and Clark, Peregrine Falcons, etc.
  • Story Units – Read 3 different online stories and enjoy the interactive activities that further learning.
  • Sentence Surgeons & Paragraph Paramedics – Learn to be an editor! Correct sentences for spelling, grammar, and punctuation online.
  • Cloze Reading – Fill in the blanks in a sentence or paragraph with the correct word from a vocabulary bank.

Other activities teach and/or remediate spelling, alphabetical order, parts of speech, punctuation, and more. Many of these activities will allow you to choose either printable or online exercises.

When you are through with the Language Arts section, use the menu at the top of the page to find activities for math, geography, science, etc.

Irish Potato Science Experiments & Activities

March 15th, 2022

Irish Potato Science

(Various sources)

Grades PreK-12, with parental supervision

Since it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day and the potato is a staple of the Irish diet, we thought it would be fun to offer some science experiments using potatoes!

Can You Push A Straw Through A Potato?

This website will teach you how to push a straw through a potato so you can amaze your friends on St. Pat’s Day, and explain the science behind it!

Make a Potato Battery

Get the 4-1-1 on how to make a potato battery and why it works.

The Potato Then & Now – A Potato Curriculum

This site offers a comprehensive look at the past and present history of potatoes. It includes the story of the potato’s Peruvian beginnings, its migration around the world (along with a historical timeline), how the potato was introduced to Ireland and the story of the Irish Potato Famine, the biology of the potato and info on its cultivation cycle — and the fungus that was responsible for the Irish Potato Famine, the modern science and technology of potato production, a potato curriculum for grades 3-9, and lots of fascinating trivia facts about the potato.

Potato Print and Play Activities

The Idaho Potato Commission offers potato-themed word searches, mazes, and coloring pages for FREE.

A Preschool Potato Curriculum

Universal Preschool shares some great educational and fun ideas for having potato fun with preschoolers.

Have fun learning with potatoes!

Investigate the History of Money!

March 14th, 2022

International Monetary Fund: Where in the World and What in the World is Money?

(www.imf.org/external/np/exr/center/students/money/index.htm)

Grades 5-12, with parental supervision

Ride a time machine back several centuries to invest everything you have for a chance at phenomenal wealth!

All you have at the beginning of the game are chocolate candy, a gold pendant, a few coins, a paper monetary note, and some song lyrics scribbled onto a napkin. Invest them wisely, and you will learn about the history of money, what forms it took at various times in various countries, and how it developed into what we use today. Will your pocket full of miscellany really increase in value over time? Play this game to find out!

When you have finished this game, you might like to try all of the other games available from the main site. (Scroll down the page a little to find them under Student Interactives.)

One of these games is called “Trading Around the World” – Decide which country you are from and trade with people from different countries. Try your hand at bartering and negotiating prices. Try to achieve various goals such as becoming very rich or acquiring an assortment of goods. You should come away from this game with an understanding of the work of the IMF with regard to trade barriers.

Another game is “Monetary Mania” as well as an informative video. Each game or activity includes the recommended grade range and a description.

You’ll also find Lesson Plans and Online Exhibitions. Everything on this website also comes with a Teacher Guide!

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