Cool Math Videos

Attention Math Teachers!

Math Live is an interactive website that reminds me of Brainpop with engaging videos and characters that do a good job describing math concepts. This website is found at the Lean Alberta website that has quality digital learning resources based out of Canada.

Math Live presents students with animated stories that teach mathematics lessons. In all there are twenty-three lessons for elementary school and middle school students. The lessons are divided into four categories; Numbers, Patterns and Relations, Shape and Space, Statistics and Probability. Each animated lesson is accompanied by a mathematics worksheet that students complete either while watching the lesson or after viewing the lesson. Each lesson is divided into sections and students can advance or rewind as needed.

Since the teacher controls the pace of the video, it's easy to customize your lesson with class discussion, annotations, and/or Activote input.

Another nice feature is if the wrong answer is selected an explanation pops up that explains why that choice is not the best. Along with the video are assessments that state the lesson objectives with printable worksheets that have a scoring guide or rubric with student examples and rationale for the given score. This website is setup in a way that teachers can use it to teach whole class, or students can explore individually.

Try it out. Share it with a colleague. Encourage them to sign up to receive activities and lesson ideas.




After the introduction (optional) select the lesson link in the lower right hand corner to view math content choices.

My Hippo has the Hiccups

Online books are becoming more and more common in today's world.  With the Interactive White Boards that are available to the majority of the teachers it makes them more accessible for us as teachers.  Recently I have found an online book that is Free yeah I said FREE, which makes it that much more appealing to teachers.  The book is called My Hippo Has the Hiccups and it is a great book to show students that poetry can be fun for them to write and also read. This book includes the online version of the book which can be viewed in the full screen mode.  Another great feature of this book is that it also includes the audio to the majority of the poems that are written.  With this feature the students can not only read the poem to themselves they can also listen to the poem the way that it was meant to be read. 

If you like this resource make sure you tell others to sign up to receive the same great resources that you get.   

Teaching with Maps

Just recently I came across a website the compliments the Promethean Board called Scribble Maps.  If you are like me you have been using Google Earth to show your students everything from where their school is located to how far away Japan is.  While ActivInspire has the tools to annotate over the desktop it definitely takes some time to learn how to annotate over the Google Earth map that you have up.  Now with Scribble Maps the drawing tools are built into the map so it makes it easier to draw on top of the map that your students are viewing.  You can also add markers to your maps, plus find directions to and from any location during your lesson.  With this website even the most novice user will have no problems using this website to bring your lesson to life.

Science Website

When it comes to the internet there are millions of resources that are available for science.  For a really great science website click here.  Science Bob has a lot of free resources that you can use with your students as well as many resources that your students can use on their own.  The website is broken down into 8 different categories for you to choose from.  The main categories being science fair ideas, experiments, and videos.  Science Bob has created this website as a tool for both teachers and students.  Within the science fair ideas section it gives great ideas for science experiments that students can do on their own or for a science fair.  Science Bob breaks down the scientific method which can also be printed and also has many resources for kids.  Within the experiments portion of the website Science Bob has many experiments with step by step instructions and an explanation of why it works to help your students.  One of the best parts of the website is the videos section Science Bob has 20 videos that are also found on his You Tube channel.  The videos are very entertaining and also educational for your students.

Great Non-Fiction Stories

This is one of the coolest websites that I have seen in a long time.  This website is from National Geographic Young Explorers and is created to get students excited about Non-Fiction reading.  When you get to the site click on the large button that says listen and read. Once you click on that it will open the latest online book that they are offering.  You can turn the pages to view the pictures as well as have the computer read the text on each of the pages.  The pictures are amazing like all National Geographic pictures are and the reading is very well written for all students at any level.  This will keep your students engaged in the activity while learning a little something as well.

This website is designed for Kindergarten through 1st grade students but I think that most kids would really enjoy this.  The website has back issues that you can choose from so if you are looking for something specific it will be found in the More Issues tab on the site.  In the For Teachers section you will find teacher's guides to help you with implementing the books into your classroom.

CHECK THIS OUT:  In the Teachers section you will find a link to Promethean Planet which has several flipcharts that are already created that help integrate the books into a lesson on the flipcharts.  Most of the flipcharts are free right now but I would assume that because they are in the Premium content portion of Promethean Planet they may not be free for long. So act fast!

Think Visually

If you are anything like me it is hard to get your students to plan their writing.  They never know what to write about or they "can't think of anything".  Now you can use the computer to your advantage to help your students become better writers.  Webspiration is an online tool that will help your students map out ideas, organize with outlines or even collaborate with each other.  Once you create a free account on Webspiration you have the ability to do all of the above as well as much more.  With Webspiration you can quickly create a map of what you are thinking about as a class.  You can now leave that up for the students to see or you can print it off so that all of the students have the ideas in front of them.  This program also gives you the ability to take a map of their thoughts and quickly organize it as an outline.  You can quickly add pictures to your maps as well as multiple shapes and colors that will help with the organization process.  Once you are finished with your map you can save it so that you can come back to it at a later time.  This will most definitely help your students learn to organize their writing in a fun and creative way. 

Math Playground

Math Playground is a fun and entertaining website for students of all ages.  They have many games that can be played on the Promethean Board which range from multiplication to percentages.  All of the games are interactive and are easy to figure out. 

Math Playground also has word problems that can be used in the classroom and they are broken down from grades 1-7.  Some of the word problems are not very fancy but they do let the students answer the question and then it will give them immediate feedback.

Another part of Math Playground that can be beneficial to the teacher and the students is in the Logic puzzles section.  In this section there are several logic games that can be played like sudoku as well as connect 4 along with many others. 

The last section of Math Playground is the Math Video section.  In this section there are many videos that will help compliment the lessons that you are already teaching.  This would be great for the students who may need some extra support at school or even at home.

If you are a math teacher this site is definitely one that you will enjoy and you will probably refer back to time and time again.

Fun Website!

Check out this great website where you can easily personalize funny animations or write your own realistic looking headlines for your class.

This website offers several fun ways to engage your kids. You can write a mock headline. Use several funny looking characters to reveal any type of text i.e. directions for a lesson, concept review, or just a fun message that will definitely get your kids' attention.

Add a personalized touch to your Promethean lesson. Generate your creation at the website. Download the image or video. Save it to your computer and insert it into your flipchart page to use as part of your lesson by going to "insert". Choose media and then browse for your saved image or just drag and drop your image on to your flipchart page. Have fun!

http://www.fodey.com/

GeoGames for the Promethean Board

I just found a great website to help teach geography skills.  On this website there is one activity called GeoGames where the kids can play a game that relates to the globe and maps.  During the game the students have the ability to choose between building planet earth and placing the correct countries and cities on the globe.  While building planet earth the students can take the poles and drag them to the correct spots on the globe and then take the countries and drag them as well.  The countries and cities work the same but they are a bit more challenging.  I would recommend the countries and cities for the middle and high school students.  The best part about this game is that it is timed and the students can have races to see who can place everything in the shortest amount of time.  After you build your map you can print it out for the students to use at a later date or even so that they can refer back to later.

Read Wrtite Think

Read, Write, Think is a wonderful website if you are looking for interactive resources for the classroom.  All of the resources can be used with the Promethean Board and can be controlled by the students or the teacher.  Once the teacher finds the activity that they want to use it is basically showing the students how to use it and then letting them play and learn.  If you click on the resources tab and select student interactives you will be taken to a page that gives you some featured activities as well as a place to search for specific activities.  This is a great way to implement interactives into your lessons without a lot of work to prepare for them.

All activities come with lesson plans as well as ideas to help you use the resources within you classroom.  It also gives you suggestions as to how you can use the one interactive activity with many different grade levels.  This is a easy to use website that will help your lessons come to life.

Using the Tooltip

ActivInspire has a great new feature that they have added and that is called the Tooltip.  The Tooltip works with any object that you have put on a page.  It could be text or images.  As you hover over the text or the image that has the Tooltip, a box will appear with information in it.  This information can be anything that you want it to be. Here is how to create the Tooltip...

1. Place a text box or an object on your flipchart page.
2. Open your browser and click on the Property Browser.
3. With you browser still open click on the object.
4. In the Label section of the Property browser Type in the words that you want to appear in the "Caption" box.
5. At the bottom of the Label section make sure that the Behaviour is set to Tooltip.
6. You can also make changes to the way the Tooltip looks by changing the font name, size and color along with the background of the Tooltip box.

To see a great flipchart that has Tooltips already done click here!

Interactive Activities

If you are looking for a great resource for teaching math you should try the Illuminations website.  On this website they have many interactive activities for teachers to use with thier students.  You can search for the activities based on the concept that you want to find as well as the grade level.  Most of the activities can be used with what you are already teaching and are a way to help your students better understand the concepts.  The Illuminations website is partnered with Thinkfinity and it is run by the Verizon foundation.  I would suggest taking a look at these two websites for some wonderful free resources.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Since today is Dr. Seuss's Birthday a great website to look at is the Seussville website.  On this website there are many activities for your students to interact with.  If you go to the games section you can choose from matching games to patterning.  Most of the games can be used with the Promethean Board as well as on student machines.  One of the best things about the website is the fact that you can read quotes from a variety of Dr. Seuss's books.  You can also create a story using pictures and characters from the Dr. Seuss stories.  Take a look at it when you get a chance, you will be pleased I am sure.