The Web Catcher » Project-based

An Astronomical Alphabet

K. Haugen — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:09:34 +0000

An Astronomical Alphabet is a fun introduction to astronomy. The photos displayed show the alphabet shapes as found in a variety of astronomical phenomena. A picture’s worth a thousand words, so this one’s worth 26,000 at my count, but really what happens here is the photographed ‘letters’ are the hook — if you click on one, you learn what the photos represent. It’s wonderfully simple and sophisticated at the very same time.

VoiceThread

K. Haugen — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:23:02 +0000

VoiceThread is an awesome tool for creating and sharing annotated online slideshows that you have to experience for yourself. Make your own slideshows or browse what others have done.

You can interact by recording or typing comments directly in others’ slide shows and then listen or read what others have said, which creates a non-linear conversation in which anyone can participate.

It’s also possible to doodle on your slideshows, and the doodles fade away (or stick, if you tell them to).

There are numerous examples of how one could use VoiceThread in the classroom.

BrainsRule! Neuroscience explorations

K. Haugen — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:41:03 +0000

BrainsRule! provides information, reference materials and interactive games, animations and slideshows to explore how the brain works and what happens, for example, if someone has a stroke. Also included are options to set up your own BrainsRule web page and interact with the BrainsRule community via voting for favorite games, sending notes to BrainsRule and ‘meeting a BrainWhiz.’

Neuroscience for Kids – Amazing site!

K. Haugen — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:29:50 +0000

NeuroScience for Kids is a buried treasure of brain information and activities for kids. There’s Neuroscience in the News, online and hands-on explorations, experiments, contests, and links to sites, books and articles all about brains. It’s worth the time to dig deep into this site!

Aunty Math

K. Haugen — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 15:19:36 +0000

Aunty Math
gives kids in K-5 a different math challenge each week, with three levels (regular, ‘a wee bit harder,’ and ‘a wee bit easier’). Kids can try the challenge and submit their answers. Teachers and parents can view tips on how to use the challenges with kids, what math is involved and how to modify or extend the challenges for different learners.

Math Cats

K. Haugen — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:46:28 +0000

The Math Cats web site offers several activities to explore, ideas for and examples of math crafts, and a great section on make-at-home math manipulatives. It has a simple, folksy feel, a welcome contrast to much of the slick stuff you see on the web. Most of the activities include some guided discussion of how to explore and interact. The activities provide feedback rather than corrections, so the students can discover for themselves how the concepts work.

I especially like the OBBL Architecture Blocks. You can build with different architectural shapes, but the blocks have gravity for an added challenge! Beyond that, you’ll find a balance activity, an age calculator (in hours, minutes, etc.), logic challenges, fractions, tesselations, polygons, place value, ‘really big numbers,’ story problems, crafts and much, much more.