Search results matching tags 'games' and 'science'

Best Selling Educational Toys

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 02:16:00 GMT

With Christmas being a few days away, everyone is busy filling up the stockings. Here's a list of the best selling educational toys for 2012 at Amazon. The best part is that they are also great for classroom use!

Rory's Story Cubes - a pocket-sized creative story generator, providing hours of imaginative play for all ages. With Rory's Story Cubes, anyone can become a great storyteller and there are no wrong answers. Simply roll the cubes and let the pictures spark your imagination.	LeapFrog LeapsterGS Explorer - educational gaming and fast-paced action in a kid-tough learning system, built-in camera and video recorder, and also includes a library of more than 300 LeapFrog downloadable apps and action-packed games that develop key skills for school.
Melissa & Doug Suspend - a balancing game that comes with 24 notched, rubber-tipped wire pieces that hang from a tabletop stand. With each turn, a new piece is added to the transforming vertical sculpture, causing the balance to shift and the difficulty to increase. Recommended for ages eight years and up, this balancing game tests your nerves and helps develop hand-eye coordination, cognitive skills, and interpersonal skills.	Bananagrams - The Anagram game that will drive you bananas. The award-winning word game that needs no pencil, paper, or board. Fast and fun. Players race against each other to build crossword grids and use all their letter tiles first.
LeapFrog Ultra eBook Learn to Read Collection - using LeapPad’s advanced features; these eBooks help early readers build phonics and decoding skills, sight word recognition and reading comprehension by putting fun twists on adventure stories with interactive escapades featuring froggy friends.	Snap Circuits Jr. - This innovative kit contains over 30 color-coded, real circuit components that snap together to create working electronic circuits and devices. Recommended for children 8 and older, this set offers 101 do-it-yourself projects that will give your child an entertaining, concrete education on how electronics work.

Everything above is for reading and science - my favorite subjects... interesting. I guess most children do not like to see math games in their stockings!

Best Selling Educational Toys

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 02:16:00 GMT

Rory's Story Cubes - a pocket-sized creative story generator, providing hours of imaginative play for all ages. With Rory's Story Cubes, anyone can become a great storyteller and there are no wrong answers. Simply roll the cubes and let the pictures spark your imagination.	LeapFrog LeapsterGS Explorer - educational gaming and fast-paced action in a kid-tough learning system, built-in camera and video recorder, and also includes a library of more than 300 LeapFrog downloadable apps and action-packed games that develop key skills for school.
Melissa & Doug Suspend - a balancing game that comes with 24 notched, rubber-tipped wire pieces that hang from a tabletop stand. With each turn, a new piece is added to the transforming vertical sculpture, causing the balance to shift and the difficulty to increase. Recommended for ages eight years and up, this balancing game tests your nerves and helps develop hand-eye coordination, cognitive skills, and interpersonal skills.	Bananagrams - The Anagram game that will drive you bananas. The award-winning word game that needs no pencil, paper, or board. Fast and fun. Players race against each other to build crossword grids and use all their letter tiles first.
LeapFrog Ultra eBook Learn to Read Collection - using LeapPad’s advanced features; these eBooks help early readers build phonics and decoding skills, sight word recognition and reading comprehension by putting fun twists on adventure stories with interactive escapades featuring froggy friends.	Snap Circuits Jr. - This innovative kit contains over 30 color-coded, real circuit components that snap together to create working electronic circuits and devices. Recommended for children 8 and older, this set offers 101 do-it-yourself projects that will give your child an entertaining, concrete education on how electronics work.

Everything above is for reading and science - my favorite subjects... interesting. I guess most children do not like to see math games in their stockings!

FALLING LEAVES -- DANCING THROUGHOUT THE DAY Part 7: A Movement Exploration That Addresses Science

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Hello EC Community,

Happy Autumn! The activity below is filled with ideas that can be used as a stand-alone exploration, or a supplement to any fall-themed or science lesson. It is a celebration of the autumn season. The children will dance about living things and explore the cycles of the seasons through movement. In addition, the motor skill of galloping is introduced. This 45-minute fall-themed lesson is adapted from my first book, Dance, Turn, Hop, Learn! Enriching Movement Activities for Preschoolers (Redleaf Press, 2006).

Falling Leaves

What You Need:

Musical selections:

• Upbeat music, such as Bluegrass or a lively classical piece

• Calm, soothing music, such as environmental or New Age

Materials:

• Pictures of nature in different seasons, and particularly pictures of fall colors

• Colorful leaves you have gathered, or pictures or cut-outs of leaves

• For the Quicksand game, masking tape or string if there are no lines or delineated areas in the classroom

• Drum

What You Do:

Begin the lesson with the Quicksand game:

1. Prepare the Space: For this game, you will need areas in the classroom that are “safe” and areas that are “quicksand.” If there are any lines on the class- room floor, these can be incorporated into the game. Several parallel lines along the length of the floor work well, and they can be marked with masking tape or thick string to make three or four long lines.

2. The Object of the Game: The children try to walk along the lines as if they are walking on tightropes, trying not to fall off. If they do fall off, they must crawl through the quicksand to another safe line. If the lines are close enough, the children can jump from one line to another. You can make up your own rules about passing if two children are on the same line and need to go by each other. For example, one or the other can back up, or one of the children must jump to another line.

3. Play the Game: Once the children understand the premise of the game, ask them to spread out along the lines to begin. Play a lively musical selection to start the game. The game will evolve based on the type of space you have, so be prepared for the children to be creative about the rules of this game!

Greeting Circle

4. Conclude the Game: Bring the children together into a circle and tell them that they are going to dance about autumn. Ask, What are some of your favorite activities during the fall season?

Movement Exploration: Falling Leaves

Continue with a Large Motor Skills Practice:

Line the children up along one side of the room, and prompt them to practice the following large motor skills to the other side of the room, using autumn as a theme:

1. Walk: Let’s think about being outside on a warm fall day. What do you see as you are walking?

2. Tiptoe Walk: Can you try to tiptoe through crisp leaves and not make any noise?

3. Run: Imagine that you are running through a pile of leaves on the ground! Remember that these are “hurry up and be quiet” runs! Put on your brakes when you get close to the other side of the room.

4. Gallop: Introduce gallops. Begin by beating the rhythm with a drum or tambourine: LOUD-quiet, LOUD-quiet, LOUD-quiet, GAL-lop, GAL-lop, GAL-lop. Ask the children to clap the rhythm, and then ask them to gallop across the floor while you are beating that rhythm, demonstrating if needed. The same foot leads throughout the gallop. Practicing the rhythm and repetition of the step is the best way for children to master gallops. Once the children have learned this motor skill, they should work toward galloping swiftly, in a controlled way, and quietly. Gallop like a horse through the field on a beautiful fall day!

DANCE STORY

The next activity will be a movement improvisation, based on a story you will tell about a tree in the changing seasons. The children will respond to the images and suggestions through movement. Allow each idea to unfold and give the children time to explore each movement prompt.

1. Introduce the Activity: Have the children join you in a circle. Show the pictures and the leaves you have brought and talk about the changing seasons to prepare the children for the dance story. Ask them to spread out and each find a spot in the room. Play a calm, soothing musical selection quietly as background music.

2. Begin the Story: Imagine that you are a small seed, but you are the seed of a very large tree. You are deep in the rich soil under the ground in winter. Curl up like you are a seed.

Slowly grow to be a strong, tall tree. Stand up now and reach toward the sky!

3. Spring: The weather begins to get warm, and that is your signal to start to grow. Feel the sunlight and the rain, and stretch your roots deeply into the rich soil all around you. Slowly grow to be a strong, tall tree. Stand up now and reach toward the sky. You are beginning to sprout leaves! Look how you are changing!

4. Summer: Now it is summer! The sun is hot, and there are strong thunderstorms, with wind, lightning, and lots of hard rain. What does it feel like to have the warm sun, and then the cool rain, on your outstretched branches and waving leaves? What does it feel like when the wind whips through your leaves and branches, and moves you back and forth, up and down? See how the force of the wind can move your strong branches!

5. Fall: What happens in the fall? Imagine your leaves are turning red, orange, yellow, and brown. The leaves will begin to fall off of you, and when they do, they will swirl through the air. Now, let’s pretend to be leaves! You are way up high and you are about to fall off the branches. Let go, and blow through the air, as you slowly fall to the ground. (Play an upbeat musical selection during this part of the story, and elaborate on swirling, gliding, turning, and falling movements—this section can go on for a couple of minutes, so prompt the children to change the speed, level, and energy of their movements).

6. Conclude the Activity: Let’s each grab a rake, and rake up all of these leaves! We’ll make a huge pile in the center of the room. Then we can line up and take turns jumping in the pile! Have the children line up and, one at a time, take a running jump into the imaginary pile of leaves at the center of the room.

7. Bring the Lesson to a Quiet Finish: Gather the children together again, and say: Let’s make a pretend campfire. We will gather some wood, and make a small fire. Because autumn nights are cold, let’s warm our hands by the campfire. Have the children sit down in a circle around the pretend campfire. Now, let’s curl up into our sleeping bags!

Keep on Dancin',

Connie

www.movingislearning.com

NASA STATION SPACEWALK GAME

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:00:26 GMT

Greetings

NASA STATION SPACEWALK GAME is a free, downloadable space simulation game.

It’s Sunday again, the day of rest. How about a simulation game to relax with, although I’m not sure how much relaxing will occur as this simulation is very engaging. It’s from NASA and it’s called the NASA STATION SPACEWALK GAME.

As the [...]

Play "Password" to Review Vocabulary Words

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:45:00 GMT

I found this idea on Pinterest.

Education.com provides easy instructions for science review using the popular game known as Password. If you've never seen it, Password is a game where one person gives their partner clues about a certain word, but they can't say specific things about that word that would make it easy for their partner to guess.

The site suggests using it to review science vocabulary (and, if you sign up for the site, you can download the activity to share with your class), but you can really use it for any type of vocabulary practice. In fact, you can adapt this activity for review of social studies/history facts, characters and events in a novel, math terms, etc. Just have the students create their words on index cards, being sure to include words they "can't say" when they provide clues for their partners.

It's a great game for review and practice with words. The partner has to provide the word, but it's also beneficial for the clue-giver, who has to make other associations with the word than just the "book definition." See examples and instructions here.

image: education.com