Geography games for kids and adults!

www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm

This is one of my favorite websites. I think I like it so much because I get to play too! My fourth grade students work on the United States. Either...

Capitals

States

Landscape

I like to work on world geography. It is fun and challenging at the same time. Whatever you are studying, you start at the learning level. They will show you the area you selected, break it into smaller parts and tell you the name of the country, state, capital or whatever. Then you do a quiz starting at level 1. They time you and keep track of your accuracy. Then you can move up to harder and harder levels, eventually sizing and placing outlines of states into their correct places. Other levels have you working on spelling. My students are learning the locations of the states for the first time ever.

Three Favorite Sites

www.rosie.com
This is actress/comedian/talk show host Rosie O’Donnell’s blog. She updates it quite often. My favorite part is where she answers questions that users send in. It’s kind of neat that a “big star” takes the time to talk to regular people.

www.crochetpatterncentral.com
If you’re cheap and crafty, you might like this site. It lists free online patterns for crochet. There are tons of categories to choose from afghans, book covers, clothing, jewelry, wreaths, toys and much more!

www.wisconsinhistory.org
I love history and the primary sources available at this site are really neat. The early map of Wisconsin drawn by Father Marquette in 1673 is a personal favorite. Also if you like history, go to iTunes and look up Professor Jennifer Burns US History 7B podcasts from UC Berkeley. All of her lectures are on there and I find them really fascinating and easy to listen to.

Technology Integration Lesson Plans

The Mammoth Mystery
Grade Level 2-4
Go to http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/kids/#. This is an interactive website in which students help an archaeologist discover and analyze the remains of mammoth skeletons found in Wisconsin. The site includes audio and text so students at many levels can use it. Students have an opportunity to follow the process of a real archaeologist which is something they might not have an opportunity to do in real life.

Wisconsin City Travel Pamphlet
Grade Level 3-5
www.ideas.wisconsin.edu
Develop students' knowledge of Wisconsin cities. Each student will choose one city to research and explore and then present the information in a brochure/pamphlet, using a multimedia format. Format choices include, but are not limited to-power point demo, HyperStudio, clipart, photo gallery. This would be a great way to learn about places from all over the state and develop researching skills.

Advertise with Geography...It's Easy and Free
Grade Level 3-6
http://www.iupui.edu/~geni/lsort/advertis.html
By reinforcing knowledge of regions within the United States, students will establish awareness of how landforms/landmarks produce a visual image of a region and to demonstrate how advertisers use the "positive geographical image" to sell their product. Since we cover regions in fourth grade also, this would make a nice cumulative activity to assess student understanding of various US regions.

Blogging Articles

Since my husband is a lawyer I decided to read about Blogging and the Law. The tips offered at the end of the article provided a great deal of insight into avoiding or defending yourself against libel, copyright, freedom of information and privacy lawsuits. While I can’t imagine myself purposely being so guilty of any of these things, it is certainly good to know briefly what you should or should not do.

I also read the article “To Blog or Not to Blog”. I went through that debate internally when I was trying to decide whether or not to teach my students how to blog. I had the permission of the district to do it (which I was surprised by, but it is educational) but I was still afraid some Internet predator would track down my kids based on their post about Charlotte’s Web and I would feel horrible. It didn’t help that I saw a really scary episode of Law & Order that had murder and violence and kidnapping all tied to student blogs. Not good. But I searched for a long time for a safe site and then decided it would be better for me to teach my students how to be safe on the Internet rather than wait for them to learn on their own and not figure out the safety rules until it was too late. That was really the main reason why I went through with it. It’s like sex…kids are going to do it, you might as well teach them how to be safe. The older generations who don’t fully understand or use these technologies sometimes react by just disallowing their kids to do these things, but that isn’t going to stop them. The technologies adults are using (like email and websites) are viewed as archaic by today’s teens. They blog and text message as means to communication and if we, as teachers, want to educate them we need to be “up” on these technologies as well. So anyway, reading this article just reinforced those ideas for me. Blog on, people!