Sheppard Software

Sheppard Software offers one online stop for many learning games and activites in the content areas of Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies.

Many of the activities are very brief and offer a great way to reinforce a concept. In addition to the games there are also quizzes over the topic areas of Chemistry, Health, History, Nutrition, and Seasons.

There are quite a few Geography activities/quizzes that can be found on the site by clicking on World Geography Games or US Geography Games at the top of the page. The games are all based upon the idea of locating a requested area/country/city on a map.

In the Science section of the site you will find activities on the topics of dinosaurs, seasons, life cycles, cells, endangered animals, and deep sea science. Several different life cycles can be re-enacted on the Sheppard Software site. The life cycles of the butterfly, frog, and bird are all accessible and operated by the user placing the stages of the life cycle in the correct order.

In the Math section of Sheppard Software there are activities on basic operations, mixed operations, fractions, place value, time, money, early childhood math, and pre-algebra.

Language Arts activities that are found through the site primarily pertain to various parts of speech and vocabulary (all the way up to SAT and GRE vocabulary prep).

Take a look at Sheppard Software and see what activities would be helpful to your students. With the "game-like" environment of some of the activities, some students may even find this site as a fun place to spend a little time this summer on a rainy day =)

As always, please feel free to leave a comment and let us all know how you are using this resource in your classroom.

Picture Book Maker

The Picture Book Maker is an easy to use site that allows you (and your students!) to create a book. The site supplies the images, you just supply the words. No registration is required to use the site, which makes the site ideal for younger student use. When you arrive at the site you will see three options. To begin your book, click Enter. 


From there you will be in an open book, looking at the first and second pages. To add pictures to your page, just use the images found at the bottom of the page.

 
You will find backgrounds to the left, characters in the center, and objects on the right. Click the arrows to page through the different choices. To use one of the images just click it. A background will automatically go in your book, but with the characters and objects you then click where you would like to place it on your page. You can choose between different actions for your character once you place it in your book by moving the slider titled Actions. In addition, you can also scale the images once you place them in your book by moving the Scale slider. 


To add text to your book click the pencil, then click into your page and type your text. Click and drag on one of the corners to move the text box to a different location on your page.


One thing that I found kind of odd about the site is that it does open you to the first and second pages, not the cover of the book. Just remember to click the C in the pages below your book to design your book cover.

When you are finished with your book click Finish to view your book and see more options. From this screen you can print your book, or email the link to the book to someone.


Enjoy!

Math Manipulatives

The Math Manipulatives portion of the Math Playground site offers some great Math tools. You will find Fraction Scales, Fraction Bars, Decimal Scales, Probability Spinners, Pattern Blocks and many others. The tools allow you to manipulate and add your own information to solve or explore a problem.

Fraction Bars (pictured above) allows you to set the numerator and denominator for each row by sliding to a different value. The number titles can be turned on or off.

Classroom Application

No registration is required to use the site which makes it easy for teachers and students to use. Teachers can use the products to illustrate problems and concepts. These tools can also be used by students to assist them in solving problems.

Have fun and enjoy!

Score Clicker

This week the Webby Wednesday site is a resource that you can use for keeping track of scores for two different teams during a game in your classroom. It is called Score Clicker.

The best thing about the Score Clicker is the easiness of personalizing it for your own class. Just click in the Team fields to enter your own team names. Then click the 5, 10, or 20 buttons to add points to the teams. It's a fun and easy representation of the points earned, and students will love to see the points added to their respective teams.

Enjoy!