The Great Backyard Bird Count

So many things to celebrate this weekend!  But I wanted to mention one that can be one of the most educational of all, which is The Great Backyard Bird Count.

The GBBC is an event sponsored every year over Presidents Day weekend by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Audubon Society, and the Bird Studies of Canada.  For the Friday through Monday of that weekend, they ask people all over North America to count the largest number of birds of each species they see while walking, hiking, and birdwatching.  They compile them all into statewide and national lists to see how the bird populations seem to be doing in the U.S. and Canada.

The great thing about this project is that you don't need to be an accomplished birdwatcher to participate.  They have a lot of tools built into their website to help you learn about and to recognize the birds you are most likely to be seeing, based on your vicinity (zip code and/or habitat).  You input your information about where you are birdwatching, and they come up with lists of birds that are indigenous to that area.  You can click on specific birds to see a picture and to read more about them to decide if that is the bird you saw, if you aren't already familiar with the species.

If you are interested in going in more depth about birdwatching, they have a great resource on Building Skills that teaches you ways to identify birds more accurately.  They have an entire section on GBBC for Kids, which not only provides simple information and some puzzles and crafts, as well as some games that are not only kind of interesting to do, but is building their online bird identification software so it will be better at helping unfamiliar birders to correctly identify the birds they see.  Finally, it is a way to have your children assist with an international science data collection effort, and see how their contributions at a local level help build a national database.

We are not great at bird identification.  However, we try to do this regularly, and every year we learn to identify at least one or two more birds than we did the year before.  And here in the Triangle NC area, the weather has been glorious to be out with the birds.

You can still participate today and tomorrow (Sunday and Monday), so I encourage you and your middle schoolers to take a walk, or to watch your bird feeders for a sustained period, and become part of one of the largest citizen science activities in the country.  Of course, the resources are available year round, so they are good to know about whenever you have a question about birds.  But it is fun to contribute to a large group project like this.  You can even print out a certificate to demonstrate your participation, and may even win a prize given to randomly-selected birdwatchers.

Curriculum Resources: Presidents Day and Black History Month

Looking for a fun and educational way to celebrate Presidents Day this weekend?  Check out some new interactive educational video games on American history produced by WNET, the public broadcasting channel for New York City, geared specifically for middle school students.

Entitled Mission US, these FREE games allow students to see pivotal periods in American history through the eyes of a young person at the time.   In each chapter, the character has some tasks to perform, which cause him or her to interact with a number of other characters that provide contrasting viewpoints.  However, there are multiple pathways through the game.  What the character will experience will vary from game to game, based on the decisions made by the students directing the action.

The first game is entitled "For Crown or Colony?"  In this game, students play the role of a young printer's apprentice in Boston during the rising conflicts between British authorities and American revolutionaries.  The game provides the perspectives of people both for and against Independence, until the students are required to choose one side or the other.

The second mission is "Flight to Freedom."  This time, students play as Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky, as she attempts to escape to Ohio.  Even if she makes it, there are plenty of challenges even in the supposedly "free" colonies.  This game presents the ethical dilemnas and viewpoints from all around (such as, is it OK to steal from struggling farmers as you travel along the Underground Railroad?)


While these two missions are the only ones completed right now, there are two more that will be released in 20123 and 2014.  Mission 3 covers the time of the transcontinental railroad and is entitled "The Race for the Golden Spike, while Mission 4, "The Sidewalks of New York," allows students to become muckraking journalists in early 20th Century New York.

While the first two games don't feature George Washington or Abraham Lincoln per se, they are great vehicles for a more nuanced exploration of their times than many curricular materials.  Mission 2 is also a great tie in with Black History month.  And there are some related games you can play, such as "Think Fast! About the Past," a timed historical knowledge game, and a music game.

Here are trailers for the first two missions:







The bottom line is, if your children enjoyed the "Liberty's Kids" PBS cartoon series on the American Revolution as much as my son did during his elementary school years, then you'll definitely want to check out Mission US.  And if they didn't, maybe this will do the trick of turning them on to US history.

FREE Physics Game Online: Steampunk

My son will be doing several physics classes this semester, so I'll be trying to supplement them with some additional physics at home.  I recently found a fun game to practice some of Newton's laws, and with a stylish theme to boot!  Plus, it's a FREE online game, so the price is right.

The game is called Steampunk, and so it has the Victorian-era-meets-high-technology look about it.   The aim of the game is to break pieces of wood in such a way that they release balls, explode bombs, swing pendula and the like to move the GOOD pentagonal-shaped guy to safe ground and the BAD pentagonal-shaped guy to unsafe areas (like the water and gears, etc.)  The components move in the ways predicted by Newton's law, so it is a good way to model concepts like momentum and such.

The game is not designed to teach physics, nor does it say anything or explain anything about Newton's laws or other concepts in physics.  However, playing around with the movement puzzles presented does develop an intuitive feel for Newtonian physics.  It also requires systematic thinking and the ability to plan ahead (if I blow up this, it will release that ball, but I have to wait until that board swings into place for the ball to move to the next level, ect.)

So it's not Victorian-era rocket science.  But it is a fun game to model and test your physical predictions.

You can play the game by clicking here.

Christmas 2011 Blog: Google "Ornament" (Easter Egg) Makes It Snow

The elves at Google have been up to their usual holiday merriment.  They have programmed a so-called "Easter Egg" for your frosty amusement.

If you go to the Google home page and type in the words "let it snow," first you will see a variety of YouTube videos of the song of that title by different performers.  However, you'll soon notice something else--digital snowflakes are falling from the top of your screen.  Eventually, the screen will frost up, and by dragging your mouse while holding the button down, you can clear areas of the screen, just like you do with your finger on a icy window.  Once you are tired of that, you can hit the Defrost button to clear the screen completely.

It's a cute little thing to try, although apparently it doesn't work on all browsers, such as Internet Explorer (I'm using Safari myself).

Below is a video showing how it works.

Enjoy!

Christmas 2011 Blog: Christmas Quest Game

Well, we're pretty much in full holiday mode now, so we're not doing much on the academic front.  But I try to find some Christmas-related things that still keep your brain working.

I really enjoy those Jewel Quest-type games where you have to arrange matching items to clear the board.  Here is one with a Christmas theme AND that gives you a choice as to whether or not you want to hear Christmas music as you play it (in my case, NOT).

Enjoy!

Santa's Quest

A Christmas-style puzzle game Jewel Quest, based on careful observation but fast. As in the original game, your goal sarcomporre rows (horizontal and vertical) of 3 identical items. Each object puessere exchanged with neighbor, but only if the move porteralla formation of a group of three equal elements. To play use the mouse to click on the object to move and swap with the neighbor.
play

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games by www.flashgameslab.com

Google's Thanksgiving Doodle Makes You a Turkey Designer

Google's Thanksgiving Doodle came early this year, and it's so much fun, I wanted to let people know about it.  At least today (Tuesday, November 22), if you go to the Google Home Page, you will see a cartoon turkey. But if you click on the turkey's head, feet, and tail feathers, you can change them to your preference.  If you click on the wing, it will rapidly cycle through all the choices simultaneously, which gives you some ideas about your options.

Once you have created your custom turkey, you can either share it through Google+ or through a weblink. So, for example, to see the turkey I designed, visit: http://g.co/doodle/d7bz39  .


If you create your own turkey, please share it in the comments below--I would love to see people's creative turkeys!  It's a fun and easy way to get into the holiday spirit.

Curriculum Resource: Greg Tang Math Puzzles

Yesterday, Maria Droujkova of Natural Math had a web seminar with Greg Tang, the author of math poetry/puzzle books such as The Grapes of Math,  Math-terpieces:  The Art of Problem Solving, and other similar books.  His books are really geared towards elementary students, mostly the 6-10 year old crowd, I believe.  So while my son had enjoyed reading his books when he was younger, I hadn't really thought about Greg Tang for several years now.

But I tuned into the webinar, and discovered that Tang now has a website with some resources that I think are appropriate for middle schoolers.  It appears that lately Tang has spent less time writing and more time programming some of the games and puzzles into interactive exercises on his website (which is apparently about to be taken over by Scholastic, which is also the publisher of his books).

The games on there, so far, at least, still focus on mastering basic mathematical computational skills.  However, I know my son can still use some work on recalling those math facts quickly and accurately.  But they are fun games, even though they based on simple mathematics.  Some of them are kind of like Sudoku, where you have to figure out the right selections of numbers, but you have to add, subtract, multiply, or divide to choose the right one.   I found them kind of fun and interesting to do as an adult, but my son enjoyed doing them as well.

Our favorite was a game called Kakooma, in which you are given a series of hexagons with six numbers in them, and you have to figure out which number can be created by adding, subtracting, or multiplying two of the other numbers in the hexagon.  So it doesn't require a math savant, but you are racing against the clock and other players, a bunch of whom have figured out all seven problems in a set in less than 10 SECONDS!  Unbelievable!

Anyway, if you buy a subscription, all the games have a bunch of different levels to make the game harder or easier, but there is a free version of each game that has been challenging enough for us so far.

So if your family likes math puzzles, or if you are just looking for a fun way to practice some basic computational skills, check out GregTangMath.com.

If you are interesting in finding out more about how Greg Tang develops the math books, games, and other materials he creates, you can access a recording of the entire webinar at:
http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/GregTangMath .

Curriculum Resource: Constitution Day

Today--Friday, September 16, 2011--is Constitution Day, which marks the 224th anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution.  The official name is actually "Constitution and Citizenship Day," and it is part of a legislative mandate that all public educational institutions have some programming on this event.  That doesn't apply to us homeschoolers, of course, but I welcome every opportunity to teach my son and his peer about the importance of this pivotal document in American history and the role they must play to keep democracy alive.

We've studied the Constitution before, so we reviewed the history of how the document came to be, particularly the compromises required to come to agreement among all the different states, some of which have worked brilliantly (such as keeping equal state representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House), others not so well (slavery issues).  We went over the provisions briefly, discussed the branches of government, and reviewed the rights guaranteed us through the Bill of Rights (and some of the other major amendments ).  Finally, we practiced the Citizenship aspect of the day by having each student identify a legislative issue that mattered to him (I was working with an all-male group) and writing a letter expressing their support or opposition on that issue to an appropriate government official.

A good source for information was the website Constitution Facts.  Not only did they have a lot of good information, they had some fun quizzes, which always liven things up.  We took the Constitutional I.Q. Quiz as a group, and got 9 out of 10 answers right, which won us a rating of "Constitutional Whiz Kids."  There is also a What Founding Father Are You? , which was a fun personality-style test (my son got matched to Benjamin Franklin, which is definitely the one he is most like).  The "Real or Fake" Quiz asks some off-beat questions about the Founding Fathers, and once again we did well enough as a group to be deemed "Honorary Founding Fathers."

So while writing the legislators was the most important part of the lesson, the quizzes were probably the most fun!  But any activity on this day is important to remind our children that the Constitution and the government it designs are living and evolving entities that need ongoing involvement by citizens of all ages to function properly.

Curriculum Resource: Who Wants to Win (REAL) $1,000,000--Math Edition

Yesterday we talked about a science game based on the TV show, Who Wants to Win $1,000,000?  Today, we are talking about a site that is offering $1,000,000 (to be split with their most inspirational math teacher) for people who solve 13 great math questions, one for each K-12 grade level.

Just one caveat--the sponsors of these competition, Math Pickle and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, haven't yet gotten the funding for the puzzle winners.  But I guess they don't have many people claiming to be winners yet, either, so perhaps they've got a while to raise the money.

Here is a video that presents the unsolved problem for the 8th grade, which is based on the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur in the labyrinth:



Even if you don't expect to win $1,000,000, you should definitely check out Math Pickle.  It has a bunch of different videos, all geared to specific grade level, about ways to spice up your math teaching.  In particular, it features puzzles, exploratory questions, and hands-on activities that draw students into problem-solving and applying the math they are learning, rather than doing rote exercises.   The problems and ideas are quite interesting, and I've tried a few of them with my own son.

It is this kind of approach to math (also a hallmark of the work we have done with Maria Droujkova of Natural Math) that has turned around my son's attitude towards math, which he used to hate but now thinks is neat.  And that is worth more than $1,000,000 to me.  So it is worth your while to visit Math Pickle and pick up a few ideas for getting your students engaged in math problem solving.

Curriculum Resource: Who Wants to Win (fake) $1,000,000--Science Edition

As we start to try to ease back into classes, it's fun to use games to review what we do (or do not) know.    The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Lab (generally known as the Jefferson Lab) has an online resource you can use to brush up on your students' math and science skills.

In the game, Who Wants to Win $1,000,000, students play a game according to the rules of the TV show (or, at least, I presume so--I've never actually seen the show).  The questions cover not only nuclear physics (which is the specialty of the Jefferson Lab), but also math, biology, chemistry, and general scientific principles.  The questions vary in difficulty, but most are appropriate to a middle school level.

Or, if you don't want to use them with your students or children, you can have fun playing by yourself.  I'll have to admit, I haven't won the (fake) million dollars myself yet.  I've gotten up to $500,000, but that last question is a toughie....

Curriculum Resource: WolfQuest, a North Carolina Addendum

Just a couple of days ago I wrote a post about the free online wildlife simulation game, WolfQuest.  In this game, you create a virtual wolf persona, and attempt to survive, join a pack, find a mate, create a den, and raise your young in the wilds of Yellowstone Park.  It is a great way for students to learn about wolf ecology.

However, there was a great article in this weekend's News and Observer paper that talked about the re-admission of red wolves in Eastern North Carolina.  This article is an example of a way to extend the learning from the online game by researching wolves in your local environment and the impact they have in the web of life.

So, for instance, in the game the wolves hunt elks and try to escape from grizzly bears.  But are there elks and grizzly bears in North Carolina?  Not outside the zoos or museum they aren't.  Those are not the prey or the predators that our local wolves need to deal with.  Nor, at least as far as I have been able to tell (and maybe we haven't played the game enough or haven't done well enough as wolves), has the game displayed what happens if your wolves get TOO good at eating other animals and producing too many young.

But this represents a great launching off point from the game.  After students have mastered the ability to survive as a wolf in Yellowstone, you can ask them how those results might differ if they were wolves in North Carolina (or whatever state or country you happen to be in).  In your local area, who benefits from the wolves?  Who is threatened by the wolves?  What could overpopulation of wolves in your state do?  This won't be found in the video game, but could inspire some interesting offline research, once students have identified with wolves through their game play.

I'm not going to answer that question for North Carolina because I want my son to investigate the issue himself (and he reads my blog).  But if people from other areas do this and find out what species win or lose when wolves are around, please add that information below in the comments.

Curriculum Resource: WolfQuest, a Wildlife Simulation Game

I know I've been writing about the arts a lot lately, which is the area that has been the focus of our summer.  However, we'll always doing other fun and interesting things as well.  My son pointed out that I hadn't written about something we've been doing for our science curriculum:  WolfQuest, an online game that teaches students about wolves.

WolfQuest, which was developed by the Minnesota Zoo and EduWeb, you learn about the lives of wolves by becoming one.  NO, I don't mean the trendy thing about becoming a werewolf; rather, the game is a 3D wildlife simulation where you play the role of a virtual wolf.  You set your own genetics--would you rather be stronger or faster?  would you rather be reddish or greyish?--then try to survive as a wolf in Yellowstone Park.

There are two formats for the game.  You can play the game by yourself on your own computer, where you must master such tasks as finding and hunting down food, attract a mate, find a den, and raise your cubs while protecting them from predators like coyotes and grizzly bears.  Or you can play the multi-player version online, where you and up to four other players can form a pack and work together to hunt and raise your families.  In the multi-player version, you can either hook up with other players in a public game, or you can establish a private game with people you know.  This makes WolfQuest a great game to introduce students to multi-player games if you are nervous about Internet security and such.

WolfQuest has a variety of educational materials available on the website, as well as an active online community where students can ask questions about the species from actual wolf biologists.  But the students I've seen play so far are mostly learning through the trial and error method of trying to keep their virtual wolf alive and reproducing successfully.  And the multi-player pack version can also teach them some valuable lessons about working as a team--a great skill to have whether you are a wolf or a human!

Oh, and I forgot to mention--the whole thing is FREE!  It's really well done, it conveys a lot of scientific content in a fun and engaging way, and the price is certainly right.

It certainly has been a big hit in our household.

Curriculum Resource: Terminal Velocity Curriculum

The researchers at The Jason Project are working on a new curriculum entitled Terminal Velocity.   While the ultimate goal is to investigate the major forces in our universe, the only unit they have completed so far is A Universe of Motion:  Motion, Velocity, and Momentum.  This section looks at the concepts in the title, particularly through the use of test crash dummies to determine vehicular safety.

While I haven't tried this curriculum myself, because that is not what we are doing in science these days, I have done a number of the other The Jason Project curricula and found them all to be useful.  So if you have a middle school who is interested in cars, racing, crash safety, and the like--or if you are studying velocity and momentum--I would check out this FREE online curriculum

Curriculum Resource: IMF International Economics Games

Perhaps it is all this focus on the debt ceiling debate, but our homeschool group has been abuzz about economics education discussions and resources lately.  But when I heard about these two online games by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), I knew I had to post them, seeing as I have not just one, but TWO people in my immediate family who have served as the US Executive Director to the IMF!

The IMF has an educational section on its website with curriculum guides for middle school and high school teachers, and some online games for middle school and high school students.  The first game for the middle schoolers is called Where in the World & What in the World is Money?  In this game, students use a time machine to visit cultures around the world at different times in Earth's history, and discover that the units of exchange have varied greatly over time and space.  The other game for this age group is Trading Around the World, which is a little more involved than the first one.  Students choose to play a role based on a trader from different continents across the world.  They your trader goes about trying to sell his/her goods at the best prices, while buying other things at the biggest bargains.  Sometimes the desired trades are blocked by trade barriers, which helps students understand why international organizations like the IMF exist to keep trade flowing.

If you have a high schooler, or an advanced middle schooler, you could also check out the Money Mania game.  It is a quiz on macroeconomics, set as a game show format.  You pick your character, who is competing against a typical uninformed high school student and a college economics major.  But it isn't easy!  In the beginning, I was getting trounced by the college econ major.  But then they asked some questions about policies that my father spent most of his early career working on....so shame on me if I didn't get those right!  Then, at the end, they asked four questions specifically about the IMF itself, all of which, fortunately, I got right (did I mention TWO of my family helped run the IMF?).  But even with those advantages, I ended up tying with the college student.  So I don't know how well most higher schoolers would do, let alone middle schoolers.

Still, these are fun ways to help explain why it might matter whether or not the US defaults on its international loans, and some other aspects of international economics.

Lesson Plan: Mendel's Experiments in Genetics

Happy Mendel's Birthday to all!  As Google let us know, it is the 189th birthday of Gregor Mendel, the Austrian scientist who first recorded the patterns of reproduction, famously breeding peas to see what traits were passed onto the next generation, and thus earned the title of Father of Genetics.

Like I've said before, we like to celebrate everything around here, so we had a Gregor Mendel birthday party today.  We invited some friends over and together did an activity based on Mendel's cross-breeding peas experiment.  But since we didn't have the time for new plants to grow, plus peas aren't really that exciting for middle school-aged students, we did a simulated cross-breeding of a much more interesting life form suggested by our recent excursion to see the last Harry Potter movie--we did our simulated gene pool analysis based on breeding dragons!  We used a wonderful lesson plan developed at Vanderbilt and added onto by former middle school teacher Nancy Clark called "Inheritance Patterns in Dragons," which you can download from this page. (But if you aren't into dragons, but are into Harry Potter, there is another site where you can map the genetic path through which Muggles can produce witches and wizards and magical folk can have Squibbs from the National Institute of Health.)

After a general explanation of DNA and genetics, each student chose a set of seven "genes" with different dominant or recessive traits from the same male and female parents.

However, a worksheet helped them figure out what traits would be expressed in each specific offspring (fire breathing vs. no fire, number of toes or spines, color of body, wings, and tale, etc.).  Then each student drew a picture of a dragon with the genetic trails of that pairing.

So, for example, all the dragons (different in style though they might be) had blue bodies--obviously a dominant trait.  Three of the four had red wings and red tails; however, one had yellow wings and a yellow tail.  This demonstrates the fact that the same parents can produce a smaller number (statistically) of offspring with recessive trails, even if the parents themselves don't show those traits.

Anyway, the students really enjoyed it, and seemed to be clear about the basics of genetic inheritance after doing this exercise.

Plus, because it was, after all, a birthday party, I made a dish of Dragon Dip:

This is basically a healthier and vegan version of nachos, with whole wheat tortillas as the skeleton, tomato salsa as the blood, refried bean dip as the muscle, and, in honor of Mendel, peas as the dragon skin (except for the wings, where the skin is made of corn.  It is finished off with a grape tomato for its eye and dried jalapeno peppers as the fire breathing part, heated in the oven until hot, and them consumed with dragon skills (tortilla chips).

There are also some great online resources to use to explore this topic.  BioLogica has two web labs on genetics:  an online dragon genetics simulation, and animations of topics like meiosis along with a pea breeding experiment (like Mendel's) that is based on the fairy tale of the Princess and the Pea.  The Pea Soup website tells Mendel's story, as well as having an interactive simplified simulation of the pea experiment.

This is a fun topic to explore with middle schoolers, especially if you can include some of these more imaginative resources.....and everything goes better with some dragon-based food!

Thinking Game: Mind Your Marbles

Here is the game I've spent too much time playing tonight:  Mind Your Marbles.  It's a deceptively simple game; you merely have to arrange five of the same colored marbles in a row, column, or diagonal line along a 9 square x 9 square grid to earn points.  They then disappear, but unlike many of these matching games, it does not make the other marbles around them "fall" or change position.

So it's not bad at first....but has your board gets filled up, it gets harder and harder to move around.  Plus, you can see the colors of the next set of marbles, but you don't know where they will be placed.  So just as you've plotted a strategy to get that fifth marble in the right place--BAM--the game inserts a wrong colored marble to block your plan.

So it combines forward planning with the element of luck.  It can be frustrating, but you can take as long as you like considering the possibilities, which I think enhances it as a thinking game.  It's a good level for a middle school range student.

Online Civil War Game for Middle Schoolers Opens Monday, May 15

There is a mystery related to the US Civil War afoot, and middle schoolers are invited to help solve it! This online game, sponsored by the National Civil War Museum, with help from Hershey High School in Pennsylvania, resolves around a puzzling document found in the museum’s archives. At the same time the online players are trying to unlock the secrets of this document, which hints at discovering the “The Jewels of the Valley,” Museum Curator Brett Kelley will walk in the footsteps of a Confederate soldier for almost 300 miles. Kelley is hiking from Fredericksburg, VA to Harrisburg, PA from May 15-May 30, 2011 by tracing the route of General Ewell’s army as they marched North to invade Pennsylvania. He is dressed in a wool Confederate uniform and carrying the supplies typical for a soldier of that time. His experience along the way will be recorded by students at Hershey High School at their blog, On The March.

See this news clip to see Brett and learn more about his long journey:



The initial document for The Jewels of the Valleys game has been released; you can see it here.   As the game progresses, additional clues will be made available through modern technology, including social media. The game will include analysis of primary source documents and Civil War communication technology, and seems to require some decoding of text, since the initial game site recommends you use this webpage as well as this one.

At the conclusion of Kelley’s march to Harrisonburg on May 30, prizes and certificates will be announced for:

Best Middle School Individual Historian
Best Middle School Team
Best High School Individual Historian
Best High School Team

Anyway, it looks like it will be a fun and interesting experience around a valuable cause.  To join in on the game sign up on the project wiki.

Have fun and good luck to all participants!

Curriculum Resource: US Civil War Games

We are currently studying the US Civil War in our history studies, which is such an important but grim topic.  Fortunately, there are so many great resources to use in this area, especially since this year is the beginning of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.

There are lots of excellent media-heavy and/or interactive resources on the subject that you can find online. Here are some that are appropriate to the middle school age that we are using to cover some of this material is a less depressing way.

• The Smithsonian Institute has created a Civil War mystery game called Who Am I?  The game starts with a portion of a photograph of a real Civil War era person.  You are given a clue as to the person's role, and then choose which of the civil war items from the Smithsonian' collection might have been used by that person.  Once you have selected the right accessories, you get to see the entire photograph and learn the identity and role of that individual during the War
• The Smithsonian has also created some lesson plans and activities entitled Full Steam to Freedom, which deals with one slave's daring escape that gave the Union control of a Confederate ship.  While the lesson is really geared to an elementary school level, it is an awesome story, PLUS it contains a fun, physically-active game (which you can download here) to simulate the Union blockade and Confederate blockade-runners.
• There are quite a few online Civil War simulation games, but we're really not interested in doing that.  However, Big Fish Games has an online game named Hidden Treasure:  Civil War that seems more our speed.  It involves searching key Civil War locations to find hidden treasure and learn more about some people involved in a secret society to support the Union.  I'm not sure how educational it really is, but it may reinforce some Civil War facts in a more fun way.   You can play it for free for one hour, and then costs $9.99 to download the full version (or if you are new to Big Fish, you can buy it for $4.99, at least right now).  I think we'll try it an hour and see how it goes....
• If you would like some battle simulations, but don't want all the sensory input of those online games, I would recommend checking out Junior General.  On this site, you print out maps, grids, cards, etc., and use those paper items in fighting your battles.   I think that can make it a little easier for those of us with more sensitive students.
• They don't really count as games, because they are actually just animated quizzes, but there are several of the ever-popular Fling the Teacher modules available for the US Civil War.  Here is one that covers more of the entire time spectrum and is a little easier; this one focuses just on the Civil War and requires some more detailed knowledge.  There are also a couple of Walk the Plank quizzes (which are similar to Fling the Teacher); one is on the Civil War, while another is about Abraham Lincoln. 

As always, if there are any other great resources out there for this age group, please share them with us in the comments below.

Games in Education

I have to give my friend Melody the credit for our increased use of board games in our homeschooling.  She also homeschools her two daughters, who are about the same age of my son, and she told me that they played a lot of board games for educational purposes as well as just for fun.  I used to play board games with my son when he was little, but there was a while there when he wasn't interested in them, and I had kind of forgotten about them as a useful "subtle" educational tool.  But when Melody told me about her experience, I tried reintroducing board games, and they are a much bigger hit with my son than they were a few years ago.

So a cold and grey Saturday afternoon like this, when my husband was out at an activity, so just my son and I were at home, it seemed a perfect time for pulling out a board game.  My son had recently been given a game called Dicecapades, but we hadn't had a chance to play it yet.  Well, it was a BIG hit!  It has over 100 different dice of at least a dozen different varieties (triangular, octagonal, die within die, poker dice, picture dice, and so forth), so my son loved just that part of it.  Then you need to do all sorts of different things with the dice--math, of course, but also stacking them, or using them to select a trivia question, or using them as a subject of a drawing, and so forth.  There is lots of variety, and it is a fast moving game, plus it covers a lot of different subjects, and the things you have to do aren't foolish or too juvenile for an adult to enjoy.  I think this one will become a favorite in our house!

Of course, there are also lots of excellent games online as well that have educational quality (I'm talking about real games, not quizzes like Fling The Teacher I mentioned the other day, which make quizzing more interesting, but aren't really games).  My latest favorite is a game called Entanglement by a couple of part-time game developers (one from Hickory here in North Carolina) who have a company called Gopherwood Studios.  Entanglement is a lovely, fairly simple, and slow-paced game--a nice change from the kinds of games my son picks out to play online.  The game consists of following a continuous path through a bunch of hexagonal tiles overlaid on a beautiful Zen garden.  You choose which path to connect tile with tile, trying to create the longest possible continuous line without running into either the inner or outer wall.  It doesn't sound like much, but it is surprising difficult.  I, at least, haven't figured out the strategy to win the game--my scores are like 1/20th of the top scores recorded.  But you can take as long as you like to choose your path, making it quite meditative--and there is soothing Oriental music playing in the background.  But it is a great game for improving visual literacy (you have to visualize if these looping paths will end up running you into the wall or not) and taking time to consider the consequences of different choices--always a great skill to support, but especially among our young adolescents.

So I can full-heartedly recommend both of those games.  If anyone has an educational game, board or computer-based, that he or she would like to recommend, please add it to the comments below.

Thanksgiving Fun

We're still in Thanksgiving mode here.  But here are a couple of free online games appropriate for middle schoolers that have a Thanksgiving theme:

Turkey Flibriks is one of those filing tiles games where you have to blast away tiles to keep them from hitting the bottom.  But it also combines a Concentration-type memory match component.  They show you a line of tiles (which all have Thanksgiving pictures, like turkeys, pumpkins, and Pilgrim hats), then flip them over and they start falling.  If you can remember where the pictures are, get the best match and tiles disappear.  Easy for the first row or so, but harder as time goes on.  This is the perfect Thanksgiving game--seasonal, not too hard so either kids or adults get frustrated, not too fast paced, but not so slow or easy that it gets boring.

Turkey Swap is one of those puzzles with nine pieces with ten slots, and you have to move them around to get them in the right place.  But in this case, you are trying to get nine turkeys to switch places with nine pigs in as few moves as possible.  This is not as frustrating as those ones where you are trying to create a picture, but getting it done in few moves is not that easy, either.

Enjoy!