Alphabetimals - A Dictionary of Animal Sounds

Alphabetimals is a nice website on which you will find some nice resources for helping young children learn the alphabet. The primary feature of Alphabetimals is a dictionary of animals and the sounds that they make. On the Alphabetimals dictionary page kids can find a handful of animals listed for each letter of the alphabet. When students click on a letter they hear the sounds made by the animal in the picture. Clicking on the letter a second time will give students the audio pronunciation of the animal pictured.

Another neat feature of Alphabetimals is the name typer. In the name typer kids can use the Alphabetimals characters to spell out any word that they like. Just type in the word and it will be displayed with the Alphabetimals characters. You can then print out the Alphabetimaltized (yes, I just made up that term) version of the word. Alphabetimals also offers free printable flashcards, an alphabet poster, and alphabet coloring pages.

Alphabetimals is funded by sales of Alphabetimals products like posters and tee shirts. For every product purchased they donate a book to Books for Africa.

Applications for Education
Alphabetimals offers some nice little resources to help you help children learn the alphabet. For folks like me who are not artistically inclined, the option to type a word and print it in an alphabetimalized version could be a nice way to print and display vocabulary words in your elementary school classroom.

Sugar Scanner Shows You How Much Sugar You're Consuming

Over the years I've shared a bunch of resources addressing the topic of sugar consumption. Some of those resources include a video about why we crave sugar, how sugar affects the human body, and how much sugar is present in commonly consumed beverages. Last night the developer of another resource on the topic of sugar consumption sent me an email about his site called Sugar Scanner.

Sugar Scanner provides visitors with an index of popular foods and beverages. Visitors can select junk food, fruits, vegetables, beverages from the index. Once a selection is made visitors see an image of the food or beverage next to a stack of sugar cubes.

Applications for Education
Sugar Scanner could be a good resource for health and physical education teachers who are trying to encourage students to make better snack food choices. The visuals on Sugar Scanner make it easy for students to understand how much sugar they're consuming.

Sugar Scanner also has a small collection of videos about sugar consumption.

Adobe Spark Guide for Educators

In late May I published a video about how to use Adobe Spark. Since then I've showcased it in a couple of my workshops. In response to my video and in my workshops I've received a lot of questions about using Adobe Spark in classrooms. Many of the most common questions about Adobe Spark are answered in the free Adobe Spark Edu Guide (link opens a PDF). In the guide you will find answers to questions about data privacy, using Adobe Spark with kids under age 13, and what each part of Adobe Spark does.

Watch my video embedded below to learn how to get started with Adobe Spark.

Character Scrapbook - A Template for Reflecting on Stories

Scholastic's Character Scrapbook provides a nice template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories. The template is quite simple to use. Students enter the name of a story and the name of their favorite character on the first page. On the next pages students list ten attributes of the character. The Character Scrapbook also allows students to create pictures of their favorite characters.

As you can see in the image above, Scholastic's Character Scrapbook doesn't limit students to human characters. Students can write about and create images of animal characters too.

Applications for Education
Scholastic's Character Scrapbook could be a great tool for getting students to think about their favorite stories. The Character Scrapbook has an easy print option so that you can print and display all of your students' works in your classroom.

Splash - Create Event and RSVP Pages

Splash is a service that you can use to create great-looking event announcements and collect RSVPs.

Using Splash you can create a one page announcement of your event. To your Splash page you can add all of the important information that attendees need to know about your event. You can customize your page with your images or use the Splash stock images for your page. Attendees can RSVP through your Splash page. If you choose, you can create an auto-responder and send information directly to an attendees's email address after they RSVP.

Applications for Education
Splash could be a good way to advertise an event at your school. The RSVP option makes it easy to keep track of how many attendees to expect at your next school event.