Skill Support for Summer Break

Shanna Martin 0:19

Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece of technology that you can use your classroom. I'm your host, Shana Martin. I'm a middle school teacher technology and instructional coach for my district.

Fuzz Martin 0:32

And I'm her producer, husband, Fuzz Martin. And I'm going to just dive right in and get to the show. Because it's, we're talking about splash learn today.

Shanna Martin 0:42

Oh, cute. Yeah. summer, the summer episode, and it's episode 123. End of season. Yes. I was so excited. Episode 123 of season 4 1234.

Fuzz Martin 1:05

And we're talking about math stuff today. That works too.

Shanna Martin 1:09

Wow. Yeah, as we get a little break here, because, you know, things got busy at the end of the school year, summertime. Well, so we came back from a little break. But we're going into summer going into summer, but the eldest graduated from high school. So it's been a little, you know, busy into the school year and all those kinds of things. And then we had a three day weekend for Memorial Day.

Fuzz Martin 1:28

And I had COVID. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a little I was fine. But for the record, I was fine. I just had a fever for like, a day. Yeah, we're good.

Shanna Martin 1:38

So it's been a little busy. Yeah. But we are wrapping up season four, which is super fun. And the fact that we've finished four seasons is crazy. Yes. And we'll probably do a little like check in over the summer, because I kind of get itchy after a while. I'm like, hey, when you talk about stuff, because I learned about things over the summer and like to share them. And there's different conferences and things like that I'm going to the summer, which is kind of fun. Yeah, of course, we'll start back up with Season Five in August. But at this point, in Wisconsin, a lot of the schools are out within last week, and this upcoming week, everyone kind of finishes up. I know that depending on where you are in the country in the United States here, some schools go until mid to end of June. Yep. And then other parts of the world, we're in different places. Since I have listeners everywhere, everyone's kind of in a different place. But for most of us, it's kind of wrapping up the school year. Then there's also the summer school thing. So some schools, like our district run summer school, end of June, most of July, our child's district runs summer school June. And so then that's going on. So these little nuggets of websites we're talking about this week, are for skill support for summer. So if you want to share these with parents, they're a great way to keep kids kind of active and learning but having some fun over the summer, or if you know, rainy days, and you need activities at home. So they're just kind of skill support that you can help share with parents. Or you can build into like a summer program with your students. They're light, they're easy, they don't take a bunch of setup. And they are great ways for kids to interact. So just to kind of keep those skills going over the summer and a little practice a little fun. So if we're gonna game over the summer, we're going to do something that's educational. Yeah. So yeah, so that is our little episode 123 NMCC.

Shanna Martin 3:34

So excited, worked out that way, too. So skill support for the summer. Our first website we're going to talk about is Splash Learn. And I know quite a few elementary teachers that use this in their classrooms, throughout the school year. But also you can set it up so that parents can use it over the summer, or in the evenings. So with Splash Learn, I use it as a parent, because my child's teacher has shared it with us to support and they do the after school hours thing where is limited access. So Splash Learn as parents, you can upgrade and like pay for all this stuff or as a teacher, you can set it up to share it with parents, and there's limited access to it, but at least then they can practice their skills and things like that. And there's still fun games and activities. And so they have like limited access then like in the evening, and then Saturdays and Sundays. So depending on how you want to set it up, or if you share it with your parents, some might be interested in paying to upgrade it for the summer for their kids. And others just might use the free version of it. And either way, it works out pretty nicely. So from your teacher from the teacher side of it, you can set it up and decide what grade level you're going to use and what activities the students should be able to do. And they have both reading activities, or they have math activity. So you can choose like, which you would like your students to have access to. And then other parents died, you just see what the teacher has allowed your child to do. And the kids already know exactly what they're doing up in the class, like, oh, I need to click List this this. And so you might go with mom, and the parents get a code to type it in to make sure they're in the correct teacher's classroom. And like click billings, and there's really, really fun there. You can do math fact, practice, and this is definitely gonna be Elementary, K five, yep.

Shanna Martin 4:48

And you've got different characters, and all kinds of games and different chapters, and then they earn cards based on the different levels as they make it through the game anyway. So it's a great way to practice basic skills, adding and subtracting multiplication, number sense, time and money, which is a huge thing in our house right now, a measuring, they even have geometry basics. So there's a lot of different topics to cover. And again, as a teacher, you set up the account and then you send it off to your parents. So that way, kids can definitely use it in your classroom for skills setup. And you can do this the last few weeks of school or you can just share with parents and say, Hey, this is a great way for your students or your children to practice over the summer. And it's interactive, and it's gamey, and it's fun, and pretty easy to navigate. And parents just have to type in a code. There's not a bunch of login log it Yeah, like once you're in, it's pretty easy to get through. And then they can choose upgrade or not upgrade which is kind of nice. So that is splashlearn.com SPLASHLEARN.com

Shanna Martin 6:43

dot

Fuzz Martin 6:46

splash

Shanna Martin 6:48

in water.

Fuzz Martin 6:49

Our little one, when she was little, we have a video or yeah, she was like two. She did this.

Shanna Martin 6:56

It was "row row row your boat". But she was gonna splash in water. And then she'll pretend like she's being splashed with water.

Fuzz Martin 7:04

Yeah, so any time I see splash. It makes me nostalgic. Ah, yeah. Okay.

Shanna Martin 7:11

Yeah, splashlearn.com Great way to Review Basics for both reading skills and math. Our next site that we are going to talk about, there is like zero login for or teacher setup, it is just like straight in. Here's a bunch of resources for your kids to practice math over the summer. It is called mathChimp.com Mathchimp.com. And what's interesting about math champ, so they have it pretty well organized. Like there's gonna be games videos, like worksheets, and then you pick your grade. So let's say I want to do second grade math resources, and then I pick games, and then it'll take me two games. Now what you need to be aware of though, this is going to lead you to other sites. So just forewarn parents or teachers like there, there's gonna be ads and things that are education related. They're not to like out there. But we've talked about Arcademics before for summer learning, and Arcademic will, it will link you to some of the Arcademic games, math game time, it links you to other sites. So mathchimp.com is a great like place to find everything. But it will take you to other math support sites, not just their own content. So that's just something to be aware of. You can click on videos, and they have elementary and middle which is kind of nice. So I can go to seventh grade. And I can go to online math, and then they have different, like population sampling of fish video lessons. How many cups of water use when you take a shower, so they definitely have not just gave me things, but they also have different activities to do.

Fuzz Martin 9:01

Doesn't go through my computer speakers. I was playing Skater Math.

Shanna Martin 9:06

Surprise, surprise.

Fuzz Martin 9:09

Usually, that sound is that is contained within the computer with this time it torrents not today.

Shanna Martin 9:19

So anyway, while you're playing Skater Math over there. They do have math support and activities. And that's kind of nice to send kids off with, okay, I don't know, if you're gonna be on a computer or gaming, things like that. Let's spend 15 minutes a day just kind of reviewing some skill stuff. But they have math resources. And again, these can be used during the school year, too. It doesn't just have to be use over the summer. But it's nice if you're going to give your kids some support or share with parents who are like, hey, what can my kid do over the summer? Here's a quick resource. There's tons of activities and the kids can show their parents like Hey, I did like this video and this activity today and kind of prove what they've done. And those kids who do prefer handwriting things. They do have worksheets available.

All like if you want to print things, but there's also games and videos. So mathchimp.com. It covers math support and resources, grades one through eight. And it's a great way just to have kids have some support over the summer just to go over some skills and touch base on things. And really, they're entertaining since you're skater mouthing over there and not paying attention at all to what I'm talking about. So that is fantastic. So. All right. All right. So

I will get this ADHD medicated, and I will be okay. But I regret just what happened.

So, but they're engaging no matter what age you are. So even if you were, you know, an adult, and you want to look good at skate or math, just for the record, if you want to brush up on your own math skills over the summer, or you know, you want to make it look really cool, you can just play in front of your kids, and they'll be excited about

Also, if you need to brush up, like, let's say you have a child who's getting older, and well, you listening our teachers, and you probably understand it, I don't as a parent, Common Core math that we need to learn. Like, there's some stuff in that in that website where you can learn Common Core math by doing the activities with your kids. So cool. Yeah. And sometimes it just helps to understand how your kids are learning exactly. Yours is like, we've all done the math in some capacity. But it's different in a different way than we did. And in order to talk to them. And I make sure I know. Yeah, no, I know. I already said my age I was born in 1978, we were forced to memorize things in different ways, instead of learning a more efficient manner anyway, if you need to learn it like I do. There's common core math stuff, and maybe I'll play some common core games later on today.

Please do

while you're talking to you about something else, unfortunately.

And our third site, so you guys slash learn, got MathChimp. The last one is called Science Kids. And it's science kids, sciencekids.co.nz. And what science kids offers is all the things, so if you need to keep, like, I keep thinking, yeah, like I, as a parent, I'm home.

More during the summer, not all the time I do. I do work school stuff. But I'm always like, hey, let's do a cool activity, or let's do a cool science thing. And then I'm like, where am I gonna find this? And I always do the same, like, go to slime. And you know, like, there's certain go twos, are we gonna garden we're going to look at bugs, which isn't going over so well right now. Because now second grader doesn't really like bugs, oh, well, we can't really look at bugs, we're going to look at bugs. But anyway, so science kids offers all kinds of activities. They do have online games, and they have facts and quizzes, so for brushing up on different science topics, you know, like food chains, and keeping yourself healthy, and how plants grow. So there's a lot of those things, skeleton and bone. So they're basically like science concepts that you would cover in your classroom at any point in time. So you can definitely use this during the school year. But also, there's all kinds of cool experiments that kids can do. So you have the option, like when you're home, or if they want to do something over the weekend with a parent, or if there's a summer camp, there's different experiments, like a lot of them probably over 30 or 40 experiments that you can do without having to have a ton of stuff. So they give you like, taste testing without smell what you'll need a small piece of potato, a small piece of apple, and then instructions, what's happening, it talks about your senses, and they give you some questions. So they're really easy set up science experiments that kind of get kids learning, it's things that they have at home. So it's not a ton of like, set up for materials and things like that. And it's a great way to kind of build in some science skills and do some of that practice over the summer while just having fun because it feels like you're just doing something cool. You know, out on the deck, or some of those kids like you can make a parachute. You know, we all know how to make the parachute with the egg. But they also talk about the science principles behind it and how you would do that. And let's not smash the egg. So different things like that, which is kind of cool. So they have a whole section of experiments. They have a whole section of science games, they have quizzes, like animal challenges and planet quizzes. And for some reason the small person in our life likes to quiz on everything. Everything is trivia at dinner, whatever you want it to be or not. So you can prepare for that. There's projects so there's different science projects that are separate from the experiments so they're a little bit longer when it comes to projects.

As teachers there's some lesson plans. So again, if you're doing summer camps or summer school stuff, or just for the school year, like reference for next year, there's lesson plans. They have like science images, you can find all the stuff, videos, and then specific topics covered. So they all have these different things that you can cover based on science. And it's a cool way to get interactive with science and not have to have a bunch of setup and a bunch of resources. You just find the stuff in your house, which is really cool.

I like that for our dinner trivia. Now I've got a whole bunch of animal facts that I'm armed with. Did you know that frogs use their eyes to help them swallow? When a frog blinks its eyeballs are pushed downwards, creating a bulge in the roof of its mouth this bald squeezes the food inside the frog's mouth and down the back of its throat. There we go. Now we use that at dinner

Can't wait. Wait for that dinner. Yes. So make sure you're gonna answer all the why questions that way.Why? Here's my reading.

Can you pretend your frog and eat your chicken please?

Perfect. What's also cool then, so I set you guys up with sciencekids.co.nz. If you go to the upper right hand is that Co dot and sorry, yep, sciencekids.co.nz. If you go to the upper right hand side of the screen, yep. If you click on math, you then have the same setup for math, kidsmathgamesonline.com. And you keep on going and you click on English, and it's fun Englishgames.com. And they all have games, activities, and quizzes and videos. So it actually doesn't like I like to focus on the science because I like all the resources there. But they also have very similar resources for math and English. So you could have like, you could share just the site with your families, and they would have enough resources for a lot of summer entertainment. So yeah

Why do birds fly south for the winter?

Because it's cold.

Because it's too far to walk.

That's not a fact.

No, that was English games.com They have jokes. Great.

So not only we have science at dinner and animal jokes. That's

What do you call a smart insect? a spelling bee. Yay. Thank you. This is gonna be fun. This is so fun. How to how to porcupines kiss?

Very carefully.

There. That's amazing. So three sites to help you out. And actually the last one's got a couple of bonus sites in there. So splash and learn mathchimp, Science for Kids that also has math and English support if you go on to those next little tabs there. So enough resources for skill support over the summer, summer school families kids are just build it into your classroom for next year if you got some time this summer to play around. And clearly if you you know want to learn some cool animal jokes or facts for your dinner table, you are now armed with those types of things. So, yes, yeah. Awesome. So that's a wrap for season four. There we go. Episode 123. And of season four, II. And that's pretty fun. So we wish everybody a happy rest of your summer. Take a break, take a nap. Take several naps, take a vacation, take a vacation. Take time for yourself. Read a book. You had a long year. We're all here for you. I'm for some some self improvement in healing. There you go. And feel free to share the podcast if you're you know, running, walking, taking an app and while it's about yes episode, please share it with other teachers. I'm always happy to share free tools with everybody and you can always reach out if you would like to hear more or have ideas for next season. Thanks for tuning in everyone. This has been, the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me on Twitter @smartinwi. And if you want to get more information on the links to the technology discussed in this episode, or any of the others, visit smartinwi.com, or find me on Facebook. If you'd like to support the show, please consider buying me a coffee or to visit buy me a coffee.com/smartinwi or visit smartinwi.com and click on the cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep the show going and I greatly appreciate it. New episodes is starting in the fall. Thanks for listening, go educate and innovate.

The ideas and opinions expressed in this podcast and the smartwi website are those of the author, Shanna Martin, and not of her employer. Prior to using any of the technologies discussed in this podcast please consult with your employer regulations. This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described, but we hope they do. Have a great summer!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai