CVSD Secondary Group

Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection is a collection of thirty-two puzzles and logic games. The games and puzzles can be played online or downloaded to run on your Windows or Mac OS X computer. Most of the games and puzzles are simple to play, but difficult to master. Quite a few of the games remind me of the peg-in-board logic games you might find at a store like Brookstone.

What 2 Learn is a website offering more than two thousand educational games for middle school and high school age students. What makes What 2 Learn particularly useful though is the capacity for teachers to create accounts in which they can monitor their students' scores. Teachers can create custom games using twelve different templates provided by What 2 Learn. What 2 Learn is a European based website so some of the games, particularly the math games where money is expressed as Euros and Pounds, may not be appropriate for US students. Aside from that most games are appropriate for use with US students.

Digital Dialects offers a nice selection of educational games and activities for learning 55 different languages. Most of the games are designed to learn and practice the basics of each of the 55 languages listed on the Digital Dialects homepage.

Another good website for learning and practicing language basics is Literacy Center.net. Literacy Center offers games for learning and practicing French, Spanish, German, and English. The Literacy Center is a 501c non-profit with a contract from the US Department of Education.

Jefferson Lab is a good place to find educational online games and puzzles. I initially discovered this resource a couple of years ago when one of my students played "Who Wants to Win $1,000,000?" during a study hall period, she had learned about it from one of her other teachers. The games and puzzles on the Jefferson Lab site are math and science games with one word game thrown in for good measure.

Toporopa is a provider of educational and entertaining quiz games about Europe. In all Toporopa offers eighteen games in six languages. The games are primarily interactive identification games. For example, in the Capitals of Europe game players earn points by clicking on a country then entering the name of that country's capital. In Battles of Europe players earn points by dragging the name of a battle to its proper location on the map.

Braingle hosts more than 20,000 brain teasers, trivia quizzes, games, and mentalrobics (aerobics for the brain). The games section is comprised of popular games like chess, checkers, sudoku, and common word games. The Mentalrobics section of Braingle is what makes it worth mentioning. Mentalrobics includes memory tests, flashcards, and vocabulary building activities. The vocabulary builder activities require users to register for a free Braingle account. To help users practice more effectively the Braingle vocabulary builder tracks the words users know and the ones they don't.

NumberNut.com is a part of Rader's family of educational games and activities. Number Nut provides some great games with which students can practice and develop their math skills. Unlike many other Math game websites, Number Nut includes some word problems that force students to problem solve rather than just recall information from rote memorization.

Smart Kit (no affiliation with SMART) offers a large collection of games, puzzles, and riddles for students of all ages. The content of the collection ranges from simple drilling-style games to challenging word puzzles. There are sixteen categories of games offered by Smart Kit. The categories of most interest to educators are probably the math puzzles and word puzzles categories.

Engineering Interact is a site for elementary school students designed by the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Engineering Interact offers five games designed to teach students physics concepts. The games address concepts related to light, sound, motion, electricity, and space travel. Each of the five games presents students with a scenario in which they have to "help" someone solve a problem. The games require students to learn and analyze the information presented to them.

Learning Together offers four activities for learning about the geography of the United States. Learning Together also offers a game about world geography and a game about European geography.

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.

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.

MSNBC offers a gallery of online games related to the news. The gallery is called the NewsWare Arcade.

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.

Super Text Twist is a simple word game similar to Word Twist which asks plays to identify words from a set of jumbled letters. The Super Text Twist game be played online or downloaded for use offline.

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.

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.