Thinkfinity has some Bright Ideas for Summer

One of the many wonderful techie resources we use at Holy Trinity is readwritethink, which is a part of the Verizon Foundation's Thinkfinity website.  The link to the website can be found here:

While this is a great resource for teachers, this website has a number of Bright Ideas to fight the summer slide for parents and kids:

I was particularly intrigued by four of their suggested projects, because they use some of the interactive literacy resources we love at HTS.

Oh How I Love BrainPop

As a technology teacher, one of my all-time favorite sites is BrainPop.  BrainPop, BrainPop Jr and Brainpop Espanol offer hundreds of animated educational videos for children on a wide range of subjects.  Brainpop was the brainchild of an immunologist and pediatrician named Avraham Kadar, as a creative way to explain difficult concepts to young children.   Let me assure you, he has succeeded!

In the BrainPop movies, Tim and his robot side-kick Moby narrate the movies:

And in the BrainPop Jr. movies, a little girl named Annie narrates with Moby:

Many of the HTS teachers use these videos in the classroom, and our students LOVE them.

The link to BrainPop can be found here:

The link to BrainPop Jr. can be found here:

The link to BrainPop Espanol can be found here:

Our students never seem to get enough time to explore the subject areas that most fascinate them in the school setting, so this would be a great website to suggest on one of those summer days when the heat index is 110... like this week!

There are dozens of free videos each week, or you can sign up for a free trial, so your child can explore the website for a few days.  The home subscription for BrainPop Jr. is about $9 a month, and for BrainPop $10 a month.  I subscribed to BrainPop for a couple of years for my own children, as they were captivated by the site... let me assure you, it was money very well spent!

 I should mention that BrainPop also offers a variety of fascinating games and activities.