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Thursday, August 20, 2020

Virtual Math Manipulatives

 Virtual... remote... Zoom... unprecedented... each of these words have become a part of our daily educational vocabulary. It's not that you didn't know what they meant pre-CoVid, it's just that now they are part of your new normal. 

And new normals always bring new challenges. One challenge that was mentioned often this past spring was, 'How do I teach math without manipulatives?' Not an easy question, but I hope to help with one resource today. (Actually the genius of this resource is that an ed tech enthusiast curated multiple resources into one link so that you only have to share one resource with your class!)

This resource comes from one of my favorite bloggers Julie Smith, The TECHIE Teacher (read her blog here). Julie created a compilation of the most basic and most used virtual manipulatives for teaching math remotely or in person. (Click heading or image below for resource.)

Virtual Math Manipulatives


Place the link to this resource in your favorite LMS, in your math lesson, or on your classroom website - then have students access it for math learning time whether remotely or face-to-face!

🕐 Use the clock for practicing telling time

🎲 Use the dice for math games and practice with addition or subtraction

💯 Use the hundreds board for patterns, skip counting, etc.

🐻 Use the colored bears for counting and graphing

💲 Use the virtual bills and coins for counting money

📏 Use the ruler for measuring

You get the point, the possibilities are endless (and I'm out of applicable emojis!). Let's have some fun teaching math while letting our students explore with manipulatives and solidifying these sometimes abstract concepts.

Julie's blogpost also has iframe embed code for the Virtual Math Manipulatives here. Virtual Math Manipulatives created by Julie Smith, The TECHIE Teacher.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Toy Theater - Interactive and Learning FUN!


Toy Theater is a vast library of interactive activities geared towards younger learners. The activities and site offer a simple interface that teachers and students love. All activities and games are FREE! Explore Toy Theater by clicking around the site. A list of categories lines the upper, right corner while a sample of activities can be found on the home page. Once you determine your favorite interactives, you can utilize the SEARCH field along the top.




As mentioned on the site, Toy Theater is "Free to play. Priceless to learn." Be aware that there is an advertisement frame currently along the right side of the screen, however this may offer a great opportunity to teach students critical thinking while on the web or teach a mini lesson on clickbait.

View the animations below to get an idea of how a few of the games work and look, but definitely explore for yourself as there are a multitude of learning opportunities found within the Toy Theater games. 

Fruit Fall



Feed Freddy



Thursday, August 6, 2020

Bitmoji Craze Taking Over

What else does one do during a pandemic but learn cooler ways to make hyperdocs using Bitmojis! These Bitmoji classrooms using Google Slides have taken our educator spark of creativity and started a fire! Educators are using these fun, interactive hyper"Slides" to engage students and bring a little fun to their online presence.





I have seen interactive book shelves, How To’s, science labs, math adventures, and much more! You can take Bitmoji Scenes as far as you can imagine with any content and subject area!
Just a reminder, please adhere to copyright. Make sure while searching for an image on Google, the owner has given you permission to use their image. Many artists are very giving and are okay as long as you credit their work and do not make money, however, that is not always the case. Part of my tutorial shows how to limit images that artists have given permission to use on Google Image Search.
Now get out there and make a scene!

Follow my how to: