Interactives. Elements of a Story

Interactives - Elements of a Story uses the story of Cinderella as a model for learning about the elements of a story. To use this interactive students select any element of the story; setting, character, sequence, exposition, conflict, climax, or resolution then read and listen to an explanation of that element of the story. After they have worked through all of the elements of the story, they can take a quiz to test their knowledge.

Despite the fact that it uses a fairy tale, Cinderella, this is a resource that is accessible to elementary school, middle school, and high school students. Although the graphics are clearly aimed toward elementary school students, this could certainly be a review resource for older students.

NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program

My friend told me about the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program.  We are using it as our writing program for this semester.    NaNoWriMo offers amazing workbooks to prepare students for November.   They offered for free and are written for elementary, middle school and high school students.  
 

National Novel Writing Month happens every November! It's a fun, seat-of-your-pants writing event where the challenge is to complete an entire novel in just 30 days. For one month, you get to lock away your inner editor, let your imagination take over, and just create!  That means participants begin writing November 1 and must finish by midnight, November 30.   The Young Writers Program (YWP) allows 17-and-under participants to set reasonable, yet challenging, individual word-count goals. 


Some of the skills NaNoWriMo builds:

• Fluency: Writing so much in so little time boosts students’ proficiency in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and will help them approach future writing assignments with ease and confidence.
• Confidence: When creating so much text in such a short period of time, students realize just how much they can accomplish when they put their minds to it. NaNoWriMo leaves young writers asking themselves, “What’s next?”
• Creativity: Creating characters, situations, dialogue, and even whole planets from scratch helps kids think, but it also teaches them how to apply their fanciful ideas to a full project.
• Time Management: Our curriculum teaches students how to tackle a huge project by breaking it down into manageable bites!

KenKen Puzzles

KenKen puzzles are quite the puzzle to some: They can’t believe that KENKEN—something so delightfully addictive, so completely fun—has an educational basis.    It’s not a crossword. It’s not some extreme version of tic-tac-toe. So what is KENKEN and where did it come from? Simply put, it’s a grid-based numerical puzzle that uses the basic math operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—while also challenging your logic and problem-solving skills. By altering the size of a KENKEN grid, from 3 x 3 up to 9 x 9, and employing different combinations of the math operations, five different difficulty levels can be generated, and a seemingly endless number of puzzles. (And many players seem determined to try them all!) In a way, KENKEN is like a game of pool or even chess: The more you think ahead to your next move and consider all the possible outcomes, the better you’ll get—and the smarter you’ll become! 

KenKen recently announced their Classroom program which supplies teachers with KenKen puzzles on a regular basis. FREE! Sign up here.   Please be aware this is a limited time offer, subject to change or expire without notice!  Teacher Sign Up Here!  

Doodle 4 Google Mississippi Exhibit

Doodle 4 Google Mississippi Exhibition

Trustmark Grand Hall

MS Museum of Art

Now through August 12, 2012

FREE to the public!

For the last five years, Google has invited K-12 students to create their own doodles and submit them as part of the Doodle 4 Google contest. This year over 114,000 students doodled on the theme “If I could travel in time, id visit….” This Doodle 4 Google 2012 exhibition showcases the best doodles from Mississippi and celebrates the creativity and artistic talents of our state’s youth. Free to the public.

Back in science with Albert Einstein:  Jonathan N, Ocean Springs, MS, Age 9