Power My Learning

Power My Learning is a portal to games, activities, videos etc for children. The site is free and sorts the content by American grades as well as by subject matter; math, language arts, science, art & music, computer programming, using technology and your life.

The Power My Learning web site details (below) what a free account gives you access to.

A free account grants access to a world of smart and engaging resources…

• 1,000+ thoroughly vetted academic games, interactive simulations, and videos

• Easy-to-find activities tagged by subject, grade, and Common Core Standards

• “Playlist” feature to sequence activities and individualize learning by student or class

• Lesson plans to incorporate activities into instruction

• Detailed reports for teachers, parents, and students

• Badges and Playpoints to reward student usage

• Flexible platform that can be used in school, after-school, at home, or anywhere in between

There are many 'How to' guides available in the Educators section including such things as creating a class, assigning a playlist (check them out).

Before being able to use the site, children must register; and if they are under 13, they must provide an email from their parent or guardian. A parent can also sign up; then the site is able to provide usage reports so parents can see what kind of things their children are exploring. 

Children earn points by exploring the learning games, simulations and videos. They can also say how good something is by voting on the material that they just played. If they like an activity, the site offers up suggestions for others activities that are similar.

A great site to use in the classroom 

The Ready Classroom

The Ready Classroom

The Ready Classroom is a great resource for teachers to use with their classrooms. Although it has been specifically written for schools in the USA all of the content is appropriate to schools everywhere.

This resource is to prepare schools, students and families in the case of a disaster.

Disasters that are dealt with on the site are:

• Earthquakes
• Extreme heat
• Floods
• Hurricanes
• Landslide and debris flow
• Thunderstorms
• Tornadoes
• Tsunamis
• Volcanoes
• Wildfires
• Winter storms and extreme cold

There are also links to appropriate videos which open in a new window. These vary in length and have been graded as to what is appropriate for different class levels.

My city has been through two major earthquakes over this past year. Naturally I therefore had a look through the area about earthquakes. In here is an explanation of what an earthquake is, a checklist to download and all the videos about earthquakes. While the checklist is good it does not deal at all with liquefaction which we found a real problem. At the time of the earthquake many cars got stranded in deep sink holes.

There are teacher tools including lesson plans, themed puzzles and resources. In addition children can make a family plan for emergencies. This is online and is not saved but may be printed out and some parts may be downloaded and saved. This would be well worth doing with students.

The Ready Classroom is part of the Discovery Education web site.

Science education

To help teachers develop their science programmes go to Science Learning.

This site has been set up by colleagues from Canterbury University, University of Waikato and the University of Auckland.

It is aimed to be used with Years 5-10 but there is a lot here that could be used with different levels. There are video clips of various scientists, demonstrations, animations as well as up-to-date information and data.

How wonderful is this, having so many resources to help in our classrooms?

Science web site

Have just been reading an ESchool Newsletter about a science web site for schools.

The Siemens Foundation and Discovery Education have unveiled their new web site aiming to engage students in science education. They provide videos and hands-on activities for earth, life, and physical science to help educators turn their students into aspiring scientists.

I have been looking around the site and it is great. Teachers will find many ideas for their classrooms in here.

You need to sign up to enable you to down videos for example. They obviously think that only people from the USA are going to sign up as you need to give data about your school and give the State you reside in but just ignore those bits and the sign up goes through OK.