Goodie Goodie Goods & Services

My grade 2 team asked me to help find interesting sites & activities to augment their Goods & Services instruction in the classroom.

Video on Goods and Services

BrainPopJr’s Goods & Services

Producers

Consumers

BrainPop’s Supply & Demand

Online Reading

Should kids get pocket money? (from CBBC) with comments

Top Tips for kids on saving money (from CBBC)

Goods & Service Flash Games

Ten colorful pictures to be sorted

Ten colorful people to be sorted via Consumer or Producers

Online Quizes to test your knowledge

Goods & Services Quiz

Supply & Demand Quiz

Image via Wikipedia

Today is Earth Day. As my wife and I explained it to our daughter last night — we referred to it as Earth’s birthday or celebration of all its beauties. It’s also a time to discover things about our planet. My son’s PreK3 teacher, Maliha Iqbal, has run an amazing compost program all year and I know all those students feel they are saving the world.

Here are some things to do with your child or students:

• Discover your Earth Day IQ
• Another quiz - How Green are you living?
• Online game - Michael Michael go recycle (Thanks to Ms Hossack for sharing this)
• Online game - Clean Up Your World
• Online game - Free the Beach - learn types of recycling
• BrainPop - begin watching cartoon video on human effects on the environment
• Online Concentration Puzzle
• Dr Suess Online game - Lorax Save the Trees - requires latest version of Shockwave

Tags: Earth Day

The brilliant colors will immediately draw you in. And if you spend enough time, you’ll fine a few winning activities to do with your students or children. Whether it’s an activity sheet to print and complete or an interactive tutorial on drawing. The site is well paced and has a wide variety of activities. Further, the number of choices at each area is extensive. The drawing section had step by step stages to draw 100s of designs. The comments were very positive, so much so that I had to laugh. The ‘Detective’ area is a searching game which I found much harder than ‘I spy’ but the play-do graphics more than made up for it. Also, the ‘getting warmer’ commentary made it a bit more interactive and fun. The games section immediately indicates a suggested age level and has a wide variety of things to try. My only wish woud be if the webmasters implement a search feature where I could say I teach 4-5 year olds - and only those activities catering to that area would be shown. Still, I could see a teacher or parent finding good use for this site. Everything I tried was free. I did see a banner ad indicating for 12 euros the premium version was available.

Symmetry is something found in everyone’s curriculum, but here is a quick way to not just access it but allow your students to show their creative side. In our lesson, we asked the grade 1 students to create a design showing one line of symmetry - using all the sames found at the java site http://ejad.best.vwh.net/java/patterns/patterns_j.shtml

It makes for many colorful math displays too - always nice with spring and parent conferences coming.

Tags: Curriculum, Math, Reflection symmetry, Symmetry

Often I’ll lead one of my workshops with jokes or a video to get the attention of the audience. Here is an incredible inspirational video on the youth of today. It could also be used with a language arts lesson on how passive and active voice can be played out. Special thanks to Jennifer Vincent-Fallis (again) for introducing this to our school - it went around like wildfire.

Here are two 30 minute lessons that I’ve developed for 3rd grade students on the benefits and pitfalls of the World (Wild) Web. For good reason, parents and teachers are concerned when children begin browsing, so I wanted to compile an informative and memorable lesson. Words in italics are what I’d say with the group.

Alright everyone. We have two busy sessions planned so let’s get started. Can anyone tell me WHAT IS the Internet?

My favorite answer is from here - http://www.davesite.com/webstation/inet101/net01.shtml

Now, what is both scary and exciting is that the Internet doesn’t really have rules. There are no Internet Police. Yes, you can get put in jail for some things, but that depends on the laws of the country you are living. Now the Internet is one of the closest things to magic in our world - it’s full of amazing facts, video and people. But, we have to be careful because it also has words and pictures from people who aren’t very nice. So, when you encounter inappropriate stuff, just move away - often they are doing it to get a reaction. Don’t let them control you. Today we’ll begin learning how to use the Internet safer and better. Before we start, let’s take some guesses for how old the Internet is.

Here is my favorite answer - http://www.howoldistheinternet.com

So the Internet is new technology. Let’s have a quick review with a technology we are all familiar with. Now, it’s not in English, but it does have subtitles, but I think you’ll figure it out very quickly.

View A monk learning ‘new technology’

This playful skit pokes fun at people struggling with new technology, but we all have to push through it and realize the benefits of learning something new. Now, when you use the internet with your ‘browser’ which is a program that helps your computer understand the information on the Internet - you have to know how to open, close, and go back. Let’s have a quick review of the browser (FireFox, Internet Explorer, Safari) that your school uses. Also, take time to enjoy the ‘refresh’ button which tells the computer to ‘look again’ at the page because it may have changed. This is useful if the webpage loads slowly or you’ve made changes to a website in another window.

Now, some things you will encounter on the Internet will be so amazing, you will wonder if they are true.

Watch Flying Penguins

The BBC is one of the top providers of real information. Why would they spend money to produce this kind of video? How do you check if something is not real on the Internet? Well - it may sound silly - but I use the Internet to help me. For the penguins - I type “flying penguins hoax” and hit enter - the second choice indicates it was an April Fools joke. The word hoax means lie or trick. Actually, if you go on YouTube, they have a great video showing how they made penguins fly.

Often people will get emails that are trying to trick them. My family is convinced that freezing water or microwaving water in a plastic bottle will give them cancer. Even though I show them when I google “freezing water bootle hoax” the whole page is full of links to show it’s not true and they are safe. Even big people get fooled. My wife’s former high school students emailed her to inform her that Kentucky Fried Chicken changed it’s name to KFC because it was no longer using real chickens. She believed it. Not true as I showed her with a quick search. But, she insisted they were now college students at the highest level of school. Even the best fall. Whenever you are not sure of something, add hoax and search the Internet for what is real.

Even when the information is true, it’s not the best.

Watch this video on how to avoid being Misinformed - a video designed and produced by a student.

Three key concepts came up in this video:

1. Is the website the best authority on the topic?
2. Is this website biased?
3. Is this information correct or outdated?

The first, we’ll discuss next session. Biased means the website is trying to push a particular opinion. In the video, it implies a building company may say it’s product is the best, but maybe that’s not true. If you visited the websites of America’s top restaurants, they’d all say they have the best hamburger or ribs or chicken wings, but obviously they can’t all be right. Some fact quotes are really opinions or the person/company may have a desire for you to believe them so they can get rich by your actions (you buy their product) so we have to be careful with the information we read. Finally, the information could be inaccurate.

Look at these two websites:

Pluto is a planet (from Space.com, June 6, 2008)

Pluto is not a planet (from UniverseToday.com, April 10, 2008)

The most recent article is that Pluto is a real planet. They both can’t be right. So who is right??

Finally, we have some homework. Humans are expanding and ruining the homes of various animals. Our school has some money and we can support one animal. Use your research skills and select one animal that we will ’save’ before the actions of humans cause it to become extinct.

Will we save the ‘Tree Octopus‘ or the ‘Mountain Walrus‘ or the ‘Sabre Tooth Salmon‘? [I open each window for a few seconds so students can get a quick peek at each - please be sure to later on correct their beliefs, else we'll have a whole generation of folks vehemently believing a hoax 'because it was on the Internet']

2nd session:

I begin with a quick review of last class. We discuss which creature we’d try to save and discuss why someone would create a website on something like a ‘tree octopus’

So being able to determine the validity or truth/accuracy of a website is an important skill.

Watch this 6 minute video on Evaluating a website.

Now, on with being a better searcher of information. My favorite video for instructing this is Common Craft’s 3-min video: Web Search Strategies in Plain English.

Finally as this library ninja will attest, don’t forget that books have valid information and can sometimes you can find the information there faster than with the computer.

If time permits, I have an open discussion or in small groups discussing what we have learned from these two sessions.Technorati Tags: informationliteracy, “evaluate a website”, “digital literacy”

Without a doubt, my favorite tech gadget this year has been the Pure Digital’s Flip Camera and the excitement just get better with their latest toy - MinoHD - High Definition Flip Camera. Watch the slick MinoHD trailer here.

Not only did I beg my administrators to give one to each teacher in my division, but I’m picking up two for my own kids. My three year old son learned the flip camera in ten seconds. It was insanely easy. His face lit up when he saw what he could do with it. It’s the #1 AV device to be signed out in our library, we can’t keep up with the demand.

The ease to record and save your videos on a PC or Mac computer will have teachers quickly saving conversations, reading circles, fun activities and assessments. Here are two quick examples of how it was used in our elementary division. A grade 2 science tech animation reflection and a grade 4 literature circle discussion recorded in three six minute videos with one sample here.

All the big media companies are covering a positive story on Pure Digital. The New York Times stated that Pure Digital was one of the fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley. I would take it step further to say, besides picking up a Flip Camera for your loved one, to also pick a 100 shares during this tough economic time because this gadget will be selling this holiday and I expect in the future as well. It has a future in the classroom and the playground.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Nutrition is a key study at any grade, but my current grade 3s are studying it in detail. I’ve always found BrainPopJr and BrainPop to be great clever and age-appropriate places to begin. Ask your teacher about your school account and password.

BrainPopJr Movie

Food Pyramid - A good introduction to food and effects of excess sugar/fat in diet (Info on carbohydrates, fats and proteins)

BrainPop Movie

Fats - find out why fats are important to your diet, in moderation (Info on fats)

Carbohydrates - compares various carbohydrates and how found in your diet (Info on carbohydrates)

Organic Food - discussion of what entails this popular eating trend

Nutrition - Proper balance discussed (Info on carbohydrates, fats, proteins and vitamins)

Pasteurization - What it is and why it’s important to the milk production process

Food Safety - Ways to avoid improper food

Fun Nutrition Games

Eating to Win - this game could be more strategy and graphically advanced features, but the messages left for the quality of eating are very informative. So be sure to slow down at the end of each sequence.

Blast off game - great at breaking down the sources for carbohydrates and fats.

Additional reading - five great age appropriate five articles from SIRS Discoverer:

1. Pasta Patrol - great info for all ages on pasta
2. Good Food is Brain feul
3. Grandma’s marathon
4. Fuel up for good health
5. Ask Dr. about minerals, vitamins and other things

MyPyramid.gov has a wealth of information for the serving sizes for a wide range of ages. In fact, they offer a free food planner to track if students are getting the required amounts of each food group.

World Almanac for Kids 2008 (20 copies in library)

• page 93 - serving size
• page 94 - definitions & sample foods for fats, carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins

Zamzar is a website that can convert a huge number of image, audio and video formats - for free. I found it when I was asking how to save YouTube videos to share with students - just in case the Internet kicks out (which happens regularly in China) or if I need to have it as a backup for a presentation.

So, I used to visit Zamzar and upload all the information and Zamzar would inform me via email when I would be able to begin downloading the video. But, while I was researching this web tool, I discovered that it also has a toolbar button option for your browser that makes the downloading process even faster and less painful. Now, it will be more tedious than using a commercial or shareware converter, but you can spend your money on something else, like a Pro version of Flickr or Zamzar!

You are able to download/convert from some of the top video sites in the Internet on the fly…