On Wednesday morning I looked out my window and watched the snow start to cover the rock wall in my backyard. Doing that made me think about my kids making snowmen which in turn reminded me of the snowman word game template offered by Flippity.
Flippity's Snowman word game is a game in which students have to correctly guess the letters of a word in order to prevent their snowmen from melting. The template lets you make your own variation on the game with words and hints of your choosing. Your game can be shared with students via its assigned URL. Students don't need accounts in order to play the games that you create.
Last week Google announced that June 2021 would be the end of the Google Expeditions app. I published a short list of alternatives to Google Expeditions. One of those alternatives was to simply use YouTube's search refinement tool to find 360 videos to view in your Google Cardboard or other virtual reality headsets. If you're not sure how that works, watch my short video on how to find 360 videos on YouTube.
Usually, at this time on Thursday afternoon I join Rushton Hurley for our live webinar series titled Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff. But since today's a holiday we're taking the week off from the webinar. We'll be back next week at 4pm ET/ 1pm PT and we'd love to have you join us. It's a fun and free half-hour webinar in which we answer all kinds of questions and share some neat things that we've found on the web.
It's Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. I usually celebrate the day with my family in Connecticut watching the road race in my hometown. Unfortunately, that tradition is on hiatus this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions here in New England. One Thanksgiving tradition that isn't going on hiatus is listening to Alice's Restaurant. If you'd like to join me in this tradition, here's Arlo Guthrie performing Alice's Restaurant.
Happy listening! Happy Thanksgiving!
Fun fact! If you search for the song on Wolfram Alpha you will find a chart of Wikipedia traffic for the search term "Alice's Restaurant." So the question/ cultural history lesson for students is "why do people search for that term around Thanksgiving?"
The Smithsonian offers a lot of neat apps and games for elementary school students. One of those games is called Pick Your Plate. It's available to play in your web browser or as an iPad or Android app. The premise of Pick Your Plate is that students have to create balanced meals within a budget in eight countries around the world.
To play the game students simply open the Pick Your Plate app or website then choose which country they want to start from. They're shown a budget for each meal in the country's currency. They're also shown a selection of common foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in each country. The goal is to build a balanced meal within the budget in each country. Students get instant feedback on the construction of each meal.
Applications for Education
Pick Your Plate could be a good game for elementary school students to play to learn about different foods around the world while also practicing their budgeting skills. Registration is not required in order to play the game.
