Christmas Interactive Calendars shared in I Learn Technology

I couldn't possibly write or add anything else to this great post on I Learn Technology Blog. So I will just share it with you exactly as it is.

It is December! This means the beginning of Advent along with the anticipation and excitement that it brings. The Internet is full of interactive advent calendars that you can use in your classroom to teach about how the Christmas season is celebrated all around the world. These advent calendars reveal fun facts, interactive activities, and stories.

Santa’s House Advent Calendar- This advent calendar tells a fun story. Each day reveals another secret about what goes on inside Santa’s home on the 24 days leading up to Christmas. In each picture, there is a little mouse hiding. When students click on his ears, he jumps out.

Christmas Around the World Advent Calendar- Each day students click on the date to reveal a fun fact about how countries around the world celebrate Christmas. The facts are accompanied by great illustrations and pictures. This site shows up very small inside my Internet browser (Firefox). To remedy this problem, click on “view” in your menu bar and choose “zoom”. You may need to zoom in several times.

Christmas Mice Advent Calendar- This calendar tells the story about a mouse family who celebrates Christmas. Each day a little more of the story is revealed. Each picture includes some animation.

Santa’s Advent Calendar- On this advent calendar, each day reveals a new song or activity for students to complete. There are some fun Christmas themed mysteries to solve, stories to read, and activities to work through.

French Carols Advent Calendar- This is a French advent calendar. Each day contains a new French Christmas carol sung by children. This advent calendar would be a fun one to include in a study of Christmas around the world.

Christmas Around the World Advent Calendar Quiz- This advent calendar tests students knowledge about how other cultures celebrate Christmas. Each day students are asked a question and given hints to help them answer. When the answer is revealed, students can click on links to learn more about the Christmas celebrations in that country. This site also includes great activities and teaching resources for Christmas.

Christmas Advent Calendar- Follow the adventures of Zac the elf as he tries to find a Christmas present for Santa. Each day a little more of the story is revealed.

Christmas Activity Advent Calendar- This advent calendar has fun little games and activities to play each day. The games and activities are quick and easy to complete, building mouse and keyboard skills. This advent calendar would be a good one for the classroom computers as a center activity.

Thinkfinity's Summer Learning Activities

A perfect list of resources for your kids summer learning.

HowToons

Cartoon pictures belong to http://www.howtoons.com/

Shared by Ilearn Technology

How toons is a site for students that teaches them how to make things through cartoons. This how to website has information and videos in topics like science, space, nature etc. Its such a cool website I know students will love to explore.

David Pogue-Technology Trends of 2009

I found this video on the Web 2.0 Guru Wiki by Chery Capozzoli and thought you might like it.

David Pogue is a technology writer, journalist and commentator. He is a personal technology columnist for the New York Times, an Emmy-winning tech correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, and weekly tech correspondent for CNBC. from Wikipedia

Muxical

Thanks to khokanson on twitter for sharing.

Muxical is a fun website where you can create music just by pressing "shift" on your keyboard and rolling the mouse over the grid. Music sounds of different instruments will come out every time your roll the mouse.

Free Parenting Tool

Parents,

I found this wonderful site full of tips makes the idea of watching a movie into a great family adventure which will help you and your kids to share, learn and have fun.

Kids Off the Couch Website was founded by two moms, Diane Shakin and Sarah Bowman, it offers a free, weekly, fun filled, adventure that shows parents how to connect families to each other and the world around them. "Their idea is to get kids off the couch by sitting them on the couch to watch a movie. Which means that you can take an activity that you and your kids would do anyways (a family movie night or trip to the theater) and turn it into a family adventure afterwards (the "off the couch" portion of the entertainment). " From the Goody Blog



The free newsletter includes red flags for parents to know about beforehand, conversation starters for after the movie, and cultural connections.

GoAnimate

I found this animation website on a blog called Jonesie. This blog is written by a mathematics teacher from the UK who uses GoAnimate to create mathematical stories. In his post he writes about how students can really enjoy this project by learning how to make animations, learning success since they consider animating a task to be cool enough to be worth mastering. Also, a way to show how real math experiences can be seen.

This is an example of one of his mathematical stories

I think this site can be used in any class project.

Fun Sites you can Use for Learning Too

Larry Ferlazzo's Edublog is fascinating. Here are some websites I found and read about in his blog that are great.

Willing to Try is a website that shows various shapes, like a circle or a stick. You click on one (for example, on the circle). It then gives you a choice of it being a moon, stick, or hole. You choose one, and then you see a short and simple story in movie form using the circle as the form you chose. To learn vocabulary.

Color in Motion it’s an engaging site where English Language Learners can not only learn the words for colors, but also many words that the different colors symbolize. Artistic site to learn vocabulary.

Viscosity is website to create abstract art. Watch a screen cast first to see how it works.

Intriguing to Glance Through

This is a collection of links that I found on Larry Ferlazzos' Edublog called

"The Best Visually Engaging News Sites" that I think are very creative!

* Doodlebuzz
* Spectra Visual Newsreader
* Yahoo News Globe
* Visual Headlines
* News Map
* World News Map
* Reverbiage
* Newsmap Virtual Earth
* Interceder
* Newsline
* World News Today
* Discovery Earth Live