CVSD Secondary Group

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Discovery Channel website lets you test your trivia knowledge while playing the same quizzes the contestants on Cash Cab play. Play the Cash Cab quiz game and earn fictitious money for every question you answer correctly. Answer three questions incorrectly and the game is over.

Brain Bashers offers visitors a nice selection of word games, logic games, and puzzles. Brain Bashers is updated regularly with many games that change daily and new games added every week.Brain Bashers was developed and is maintained by Kevin Stone. Kevin Stone is a mathematics teacher in England.

Traveler IQ Challenge has 14 interactive geography games. The activities can be embedded in a blog or website.

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.

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.

Playing History is a collection of 128 games related to topics in US and World History as well as civics and geography. The games come from a variety of sources across the web. Feedback on every game and suggestions for future additions are welcomed by the hosts of the site. Visitors to Playing History can search for games by using the tag cloud, by using the search box, or just browse through the entire list.

The British Council's Learn English website offers 69 interactive activities for learning the rules of grammar. The activities are not listed by grade level so you will have to preview them to determine which activities are best suited for your students.

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.

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.

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.

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.