I saw this great blog post about a website called Scootpad that I found written by Kate at
I originally saw it at
It got me thinking about all the great technology we use in the classroom. I thought I’d share what I use and would love to hear what your favorites are.
Years ago, when I taught first grade, my favorite site was Starfall.
For the last few years, I’ve been using Education City. This is a paid site unfortunately. Our district got a trial and our school started using it a lot so they kept it for us. It looks like they have a free trail.
My students LOVE this site. The graphics are high quality and hilarious. They have games and more for Kinder through 6th grade.
This is a picture of the game choices for second grade math. Each game has a ten minute timer but kids usually finish before time is up. There are 10 questions per game and the kids get a percentage that they can send to their teacher.
Here is a screenshot of a bumper car game the kids loved.
I liked that I could easily find all the games that fit the topics we were learning. When we went to the computer lab, I’d assign a required game to start with and let them choose games after that.
They loved the Play Live aspect that let them race against each other to answer math facts.
Speaking of math facts… the other website I used a lot was Xtramath.org
This FREE website helps your students memorize math facts. I wasn’t sure they’d like it because it is basically flash cards, but they loved the challenge of seeing how many happy faces they could get in a row. I only had one computer in my classroom. I’d just open it at the beginning of the day and kids would go one at a time. It even puts up a new name on the computer so the kids know who is next.
The great thing about XtraMath is that it keeps track of how kids are doing for you and emails you updates.
I used to use BrainPop a lot when our site had a subscription but we chose to keep Education City and lost that one. You can still access a few videos on Brain Pop for free without a subscription.
I did use the Brain Pop app to show a couple of free videos on my iPad while students sat on the carpet.
I’m excited about teaching 5th Grade Math next year! Our site decided to use Dreambox to help us with Math Intervention and it looks like it will be great. It is another subscription site but the site license was pretty reasonable so we were able to do it even with all the budget cuts.
I can’t tell you too much about it yet. It’s a math program that leads students in the direction they need to go based on what they know. They have two interfaces to appeal to either K-2 or 3 and up but students that have needs outside their grade level can access content from any grade. From what I’ve seen in the demo on the site it looks like it will be motivating. I was especially excited when the rep told me that it will keep track of how productive the students are. So, if a kid is just clicking around but not really doing any activities, I’ll be alerted and can use proximity to motivate. 🙂
What sites are you using in your classroom?
Kate says
Hi Mercedes! Thanks for sharing my post! Have you tried using SumDog? My students love it!!
Kate
EduKate and Inspire
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Heather's Heart says
I love Education City! Another favorite of my kiddos is abcya.com. My ELL kiddos love it! =)
Heather
Heather's Heart
Mercedes Hutchens says
Thanks for the suggestions Kate and Heather. I've heard good things about SumDog and abcya from teachers at my school. I should take a look.