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Collection of interactive SMART Board games for educators on PBS KIDS

Morning messages welcome children to school and enhance the day's learning and teaching.

"Maths is one of the most fundamental skills that any child needs to succeed at school and life in general. Make the learning less of a chore by implementing gaming elements into the learning process. Lots of kids chose to play these games even knowing that they are maths based. That says something about the concept on which these types of games have been developed. See if any might be suitable for your class or perhaps just for one or two struggling students."

"QUINCY, Wash. - A few years ago, a young female engineer named Isis Anchalee was featured on one of her company's recruiting posters only to be subjected to a barrage of digital feedback questioning whether she was really an engineer. People posting on Facebook and Twitter said Anchalee was too attractive to be an actual software engineer and must be a model. Anchalee responded like the techie she is. She wrote a blog post about her experience and added a photo of herself with the hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer. Twitter exploded with selfies of female engineers of all backgrounds and male engineers of color declaring they looked like engineers, too. If she had known about the hashtag campaign and taken a look, Alessandra Gudino Aguilar, age 8, might have seen a grown-up version of herself. Alessandra, a student at Pioneer Elementary School in rural Quincy, Washington, spent part of the fall term in an enrichment class focused on teaching elementary-age students the principles of engineering design through a curriculum designed by educators and scientists at Boston's Museum of Science."

"As a librarian, my goal is to expose students to all forms of literacy. Coding, to me, is just another form.  Teaching coding allows me to integrate multiple disciplines together. Coding is a process just like the research process. That is why it fits so nicely in the library. Additionally, coding teaches problem solving, cooperation, and how to overcome failure. With all that being said, I do not believe in just coding for coding sake. I feel it should fit within a bigger picture. Combining coding skills with other literacy skills is always my ultimate goal. Below are a few examples of how I teach coding with early childhood students. Most of these ideas did not start with me. They are a collection of resources from amazing educators that I have learned from."

"Earlier in the school year my students created whole-class videos using our large green screen studio. While I assigned students a variety of tasks (director, camera operator, acting coach), my students spent the majority of their time on the carpet as an audience member. At the end of these units I wondered how we could increase student ownership of the production. Could I have my students create a green screen movie without having to play the audience member for large portions of the time? Could they be empowered to create a movie independently of the teacher? Could this be done by kindergartners and first graders? For most of the school year I struggled with these questions. That was until I met Brenda Windsor and Mary O'Neil of Trumbull, CT at the Fairfield University "Education Technology Collaboration Day" in March.  Brenda and Mary presented on how they have incorporated green screens in the classroom, and shared the idea of using a pizza box to make a miniature portable studio. Here is a link to the video they created.  From that moment, I was on a mission to have my K-2 students write, direct, film & star in their own collaborative group mini green screen movies. "