216 mind-stretchers results | sort by:
return to subject listingLet's Play Math! - letsplaymath.net
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Bookmark this blog to use as a resource for classroom lessons and activities. Subscribe to the blog or "like" the Facebook page to be notified when new posts appear. Share this link on your class website for students and parents to use at home.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Promethean Planet - Promethean, Inc
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Before you try any of these activities, think about how you can make the lesson more student-centered. Find ideas in TeachersFirst's Hands off, Vanna! Giving Students Control of Interactive Whiteboard Learning . Browse the site for interactive whiteboard resources to download for classroom use. Bookmark and save favorites for later use. Download any resource, then tweak it to your individual needs. Have questions about creating Promethean Flipcharts? Post your question on the technical board to receive helpful replies. If you have a SmartBoard, be sure to check out the SmartBoard lessons and resources page located here. You will need to download the ActivInspire software (free).Comments
This is the go-to site for Promethean flipchart downloads. Most files were created by teachers. The only downside is that the files are hit-or-miss. There are many gems, but you might have to browse some not-so-great files to find them.Tim, , Grades: 0 - 6
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Do Lectures - Talks That Inspire Action - The Chicken Shed
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Do Lectures are a great place to find inspiration and new ideas for your classroom. Many of the videos connect today's real world with curriculum topics, even in entrepreneurship, health, or family and consumer science classes. Use Do Lecture videos as the perfect supplement or launching point for units of study in your classroom. Find a video that supports the topics happening in your classroom. Share on your website for student viewing. Use on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) for a whole class discussion. Stop the video at various points to discuss or debate ideas included. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos in response to videos viewed on Do Lectures or their own topic. Share the videos on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here. Teachers of gifted could plan an entire unit of study around one video or have students select one to use as the launch point for an independent project.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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MathFlix - Loyola University Chicago School of Education
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Bookmark this site as a resource for math videos to use on your interactive whiteboard or on classroom computers. Watch videos together to introduce or review classroom concepts. Or "flip" your classroom by sharing the videos oor independent viewing before you discuss the topic in class. Share a link to videos on your classroom website or blog for students to use as a review resource at home. Share this entire site on your class website, wiki, or blog for alternative presentations of topics that are difficult. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos of their own on math concepts. Share the videos on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Edsitement - EdSitement
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use Edsitement for lesson ideas in language, history, literature, and cultures. Find multiple sources to give a deeper comprehension on the subject matter. In history classes, keep the ongoing calendar in your favorites to celebrate an important historical day every day. Lesson plans cover multiple grade levels in many different subject areas. Resources can enrich, or even to give further explanation to current topics of study.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Tesla - Master of Lightning - PBS
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Add intrigue and mystery, to your science unit on electricity, motion, or inventors as you study the life and accomplishments of Nikola Tesla. Excellent lesson plans include a concrete understanding of potential energy, mechanical energy to electrical energy. Use on an interactive white board to begin your unit or create a "Who Dunnit" with electricity or radio. Follow the structure of ideas presented to create an online "famous scientist" wiki, blog or PowerPoint to add to your class website. Use a Socratic seminar to debate which scientist should get credit for the induction motor, radio, and even the Industrial Revolution. Use the readings for older students, advanced readers, or gifted students, as they are far above the reading level of elementary and early middle school students. In language arts, writing topics could include "What a shock electricity is in my life" and "Will the true inventor of electricity please stand up?" The ideas and resources are electrifying!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Spreaker - Spreaker Online Radio
Grades
1 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Enjoy a live radio show from your classroom! Publish written pieces of writing, science reports, social studies reports, and any other reports you would like to share. Create a New Book or Book Review podcast for the media center. Link to your podcast URL on your class website. Publish directions to projects, explanations for difficult concepts, or even a radio show of you reading your favorite books for your students. Have upper elementary students take turns reading aloud for a podcast aimed at little reading buddies in kindergarten. Allow students to podcast to "pen pals" in faraway places. Record your school choir, orchestra group, poetry club, or drama club doing their best work or dramatic readings of Shakespeare soliloquies. Take your school newspaper to a new level with recorded radio articles. Be sure to include interviews with students, teachers, principals, parents, authors, artists, and almost anyone. In younger grades, use to save an audio portfolio of reading fluency, expression, or to aid with running records or even include writing. Be sure do this regularly throughout the year to analyze growth. Have fun at Halloween with your Halloween station filled with favorite spooky stories! Welcome your students to a new school year by sending them your message. Create messages for classmates who move away. Bring your foreign language classes an extra resource of your pronunciations whenever they need more practice. ESL/ELL, special education classes can often benefit from the extra explanations, practice, and elaborated instructions given at their own pace. The possibilities are endless! The site itself is a "web 2.0," social networking style site, so some schools may have it blocked. Ask about unblocking just YOUR teacher account so you can have students access it while at school and under your supervision.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
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Cut The Rope - ZeptoLab
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use this game on classroom computers for a logic or problem solving center. Encourage students to share strategies that worked and didn't work and to consider the causes of each. Have them chart the various strategies they test and the results. If individual computeres aren't available, share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Share a link to the site on your classroom website or newsletter for students to try at home.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Steve Spangler Sick Science Videos - Steve Spangler
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Show a video on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) as an introduction before conducting an experiment in class. Stop the video before the ending and have students predict what will happen. Have students journal their thoughts to the science at work in the video. Have students create their own comics to explain a topic using comic-creation tools from this collection. Share this site as a resource for science fair projects or for a school science night.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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I Speak Math - Julie Reulbach
Grades
5 to 10In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for finding varied math activities for your class. Search the site for math stations to find tips for running math stations in your classroom.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mr. Honner - Math Appreciation - Patrick Honner
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Use this blog as a resource for finding new classroom activities such as the custom pi necklace mathematical Valentine. (Use the search bar near the top of the page to find these items if not found on the home page.) Have students complete activities found on the site then extend their knowledge by challenging them to create an online graphic to share using Kleli, reviewed here. Share the site with your art teacher for collaborations in art and math classes.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Number Warrior - Jason Dyer
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Share puzzles from the sites for students to complete weekly or as homework. Then challenge students to create a talking avatar using a photo or other image (legally permitted to be reproduced). The avatars can be used to explain steps and logic used to complete puzzles. Use a site such as Blabberize, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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edublogs - edublogs.org
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Save this site as a favorite for all of your blogging needs. Find very informative instructions on blogging, and follow the student blogging challenge lesson plans. Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have. Peruse through the various subjects and discover how other teachers use blogging in their classrooms. Using the given PDFs on blogging start up, parent guidelines, incorporating into subject areas, and adapt to make them suitable for you. Look at a variety of examples to help devise your own unique style to meet your students' needs.Edge Features:
Includes an education-only area for teachers and students
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be shared by URL
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
Includes teacher tools for registering and/or monitoring students
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Guess the Title - Big Huge Labs
Grades
7 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Guess the Title is a quick and "addicting" way to teach, practice, and reinforce the skill of main idea -- done visually. It also teaches creative flexibility as brains cycle through possibilities to find the correct approach to the picture. Bookmark it in your favorites to provide easy access for projecting it on your interactive whiteboard. Use it whenever you have a few minutes before or after a lesson and need a motivational time filler. Include it in the "useful links" section of your class page for students to access in school or at home. Remember, it always helps to have easily accessible, "do now" activities in your "bag of tricks" to keep students engaged while using technology, when others may still be working on an assignment.Check out the Big Huge Labs educator account. Easily pre-register students to avoid creating logins, view and download their creations, and view the site advertisement free. You will find information about the Educator Account here.
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Thunks - Get Thunking - Ian Gilbert
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Display a Thunk on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) as a discussion/debate starter. Have students choose a response and defend their answer. Allow students to discuss their answer throughout the week and survey responses again. Have students create their own Thunks to be discussed in class. Create a bulletin board and allow students to post comments and reactions to the question posed. Use a Thunk as a journal writing prompt. Make this page available for students who are "stuck" thinking of something to write about.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wondermind - Tate Liverpool
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Create a link on classroom computers for students to try the challenges and then view videos on your interactive whiteboard together. Check out the learning resources link to view a video with additional ideas for visual perception games and activities. Use as part of your Alice in Wonderland or Lewis Carroll units. If you teach psychology, anatomy, or health, this exploration will offer a new angle into how the brain works. Use the game and video about memory during a unit on study skills and discovering how students learn best. Teachers of gifted may also want to explore this site as part of a unit on the gifted mind. Learning support teachers may also want to use portions to help students better understand why their minds operate differently -- not "badly." Bright Asperger's students might be fascinated by the portion on the prefrontal cortex and how we learn self-control.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ChronoZoom - Microsoft Research
Grades
8 to 12The site's creators freely admit that they don't really know where the project will lead, and what technologies might emerge that will help them create more content for the site. There are some caveats for using the site. First, the site assumes a particular theory of the creation of the universe, and the timeline of its existence. Second, the site can lend itself to aimless "mousing," or the temptation to simply click and move the mouse to see how the site will react, with no attention to the content at all.
In the Classroom
This is a big idea, still in its early stages. Obviously it has usefulness as a way of visually demonstrating the sheer immensity of time, and the relative insignificance of human existence in comparison. You could use this site as an intro to any history or geology class simply to generate BIG questions that students want to know. Consider asking gifted students, or students interested in technology applications to imagine what the site COULD be. How would they create a visual overview of--forever? How can one prioritize what matters? But on an interactive whiteboard--WOW! If you, as current students seem to be, are comfortable with imagining the world as a series of hyperlinks rather than a linear march, this site has limitless potential.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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New Math - Craig Damrauer
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Display a new slide on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) weekly as a conversation-starter in a math class, social studies class, or gifted classroom. Ask students to explain what the equation might mean. Challenge students to create their own new math word equations and share them using a talking avatar using a photo (legally permitted to be reproduced). Use a site such as Blabberize, reviewed here. Much of the vocabulary used with the equations is very advanced. Use this in English class for vocabulary development. Then challenge students to create some of their own "equations" with other new vocabulary words.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Brain Metrix - BrainMetrix.com
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Enjoy your new workout routine! Share the activities on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Challenge your gifted students (or ANY student) to strive for tiptop "brain shape." Use as a way to prove to struggling students they can improve with practice to gain confidence. Provide this link on your class website as an enrichment site.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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World Science - World Science
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
World Science empowers your students to recognize that they too can ask questions, and they too can understand the latest science questions and answers. Inspire thinkers to find questions and seek answers. Set as your home page and always captivate your students. Use as a reference site to add the latest science news. Subscribe and send to each of your students emails. Reinforce the scientific method in everyday research. Have your classes create their own science news on your website. This is an excellent site for inspiring critical thinking skills and creative thinking. Be sure to include this site as part of your current events and curriculum in gifted and advanced classes.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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