Shape It Up is one of many good educational games and activities on Kinetic City. Shape It Up is an activity that would be good for use in an elementary school Earth Science lesson. The activity presents students with "before" and "after" images of a piece of Earth. Students then have to select the force nature and the span of time it took to create the "after" picture. If students choose incorrectly, Shape It Up will tell the student and they can choose again.
Fling the Teacher is a website containing 68 history quiz games. All of the quizzes have at least fifteen questions and a few of the games have more than 100 questions. The average is 30-45 questions per quiz. Prior to starting each quiz game students can create their own custom game character.
Scavenger Hunt Through History is a game designed to be played by students in junction with Freedom: A History of US produced by PBS. Freedom: A History of US contains is an overview of US history containing videos, documents, and pictures. In addition to the resources previously mentioned, their are quizzes for students to test their knowledge.
National Geographic Kids has a wide variety of games, puzzles, and activities for students of elementary school age. National Geographic Kids has nine games specifically for developing geography skills.
Learning Games for Kids offers games for mathematics as well as many other content areas. Most of the games on Learning Games for Kids can be played directly on the website although some do link out to other sources.
Ghost Blasters is designed to help students learn to multiply and divide quickly in their heads. To play Ghost Blasters select a multiple of which each "bad" ghost will have a value that is a multiple of that which you chose. Students then use their mouse to blast every "bad" ghost. For example, if I select "5" at the beginning then all bad ghosts will display a multiple of 5. I then have to blast all of the bad ghosts to gain points, but if I blast a "good" ghost (a ghost that does not have a multiple of 5) I lose points.
Decimal Squares provides simple games for students to use to develop their math skills. The games do not require an account to play and they work on any web browser that has current Flash plug-ins installed. The games are best suited to middle school students, but could be used with upper elementary grades or with high school freshmen.
Shedd Aquarium in Chicago has a great collection of interactive learning activities. The activities are categorized according to grade level and vary in format. Some of the interactive activities are like video games (Squish the Fish for 1st graders) while others are more like virtual scavenger hunts (Conservation Investigation). The games and virtual scavenger hunts could easily take students an hour or longer to complete and the students would learn something new throughout the activity. In addition to the interactive activities, Shedd Aquarium provides a host of great Marine Science lesson plans for grades K-12.
Pest World for Kids is a fun educational website for students in elementary school grades. Pest World for Kids has a great index of pests which includes information on what they look like, where they are found, and how to prevent pest infestations. The Pest World for Kids website has four fun educational games that students will enjoy playing as they learn about insects and rodents. In the teacher section of Pest World for Kids, teachers will find lesson plans to accompany the educational games.
XP Math is a good place to find math games, math videos, math worksheets, and math e-books. The games section of XP Math offers games for basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and probability. Create an account on XP Math and you can keep track of your scores.
Word Twist is an online version of the popular board game, Boggle. Word Twist comes in two versions a four by four grid and a five by five grid. The purpose of Word Twist is to identify as many words as possible using the letters in the grid.
The Problem Site is loaded with great games for students. Some of the games are traditional "hang-man" style games, some of the games are traditional games with a twist, and some of the games are completely new. Each game is designed to help students develop problem solving skills. The games are categorized as word games, math games, or strategy games.
Remember those "star charts" you had a kid, the ones where you earned stars for good behavior or doing your chores? Handipoints has taken the star chart concept and built a website on it. Here's how it works, parents (or teachers) create a list of items for their kids to do. The kids then check off each task as they do it. For each task or behavior goal completed the child earns points. When the child reaches their goal they can cash in their points toward playing the Handiland game. Parents/ teachers can also print the completed charts and provide offline rewards.
Studyblue is a free tool that allows users to create flashcards, quizzes, and lecture notes and share them with others. Teachers can set up a "class" and give students a code, and everyone with the code can create collaborative study materials. There are mobile phone apps that the students can use to take their flashcards and notes anywhere. They can access their files offline. StudyBlue also sends helpful test and study reminders via email and text message.
PBS Teachers is a wonderful site with lots of resources and supplemental material for teachers to use with students. This particular link will take you directly to the STEM education resource center: Professional Development and the focus on this page is Global Climate Change Modules from PBS and NASA. However, if you look at the top of the page you can choose a specific grade band and then within that there are various content areas that can be chosen. Looks like a very interesting site with lots of resources to select from.
Teacher Toolbox is an interactive math and reading resource for K-5th grade. There are interactive math applets, math games, free flash cards, interactie whiteboard lessons, reading games stories for kids, professional development resources as well as printables.