Math Cats (www.mathcats.com) is a website with interactive games/ activities that engage children with mathematics topics. I have not actually used this site, but I've used a similar one (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, NCTM, site, Illuminations). I think this would be a really cool website to use with the Smartboards. I used the smartboard for the first time last Wednesday for that 5th grade science teacher's workshop. I was able to get it hooked to my computer and get it hooked up to work with the powerpoint. Even the limited amount of use, it was cool! A teacher friend that I asked about what she uses with her smartboard said that anything she does on it completely rivets the children's attention!
Apparently, the Teaching Children Mathematics journal (the elementary journal of NCTM) has written several reviews and an article on the use of mathcats. Here's the link for one of the reviews: http://www.mathcats.com/reviews.html#teachingchildrenmathematics
(I've forgotten my password for my NCTM membership and I've changed my email, so I have to wait until monday to get that straightened out. So when that happens, I'll email my team and those interested either my password, or the article).
2 comments:
I liked that Math Cats site. I'm not sure it will work at my school because anything even approximating games tends to get blocked by the server. But there were definitely lots of cool things on that page. My students are always up for playing math games on the computer. Have you ever seen Funbrain? That is a pretty great site also. Actually, I think we used that site in tech class once.
On a separate issue, do know how to have the websites hyperlinked from your blog? In the Post window, you'll see a little picture like this;
http://helpsite.spe.org/images/helpsite/articles/42/icon-hyperlink.jpg
If you click on that, it will bring up a window into which you can copy the URL from the website you want. The only thing you need to do first is highlight a word you want the people to click on and then hit the Hyperlink icon. If you look at my page, you'll see what I mean. It'll probably save you some time in the long run.
This cat program is excellent and I believe it should be used as a resource in every school. I am always looking for books with animals in them for my pet store. It is important to incorporate reading into everything kids do.
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