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.





The first is a suggestion to create Summer Poetic Memories:

"Summer serves up red-hot afternoons, cold lemonade, buzzing bees, and rumbling thunderstorms – rich images that can be captured in poems. The child begins this activity by selecting a summer topic, moment, or memory and then exploring it through words and drawings. Next, the child can use one or more poetry interactive tools with easy-to-follow formats for beginner poets. The child types descriptive words into the formats to create playful poems.  A supervising adult can interact with the child throughout the activity, or the child can work independently."

Next up is an activity called Can You Convince Me?

"Begging seems like a skill that every child masters early on: “Please, please, please let me sleep over at Sally’s house” or “Yuck, don’t make me eat my peas.” Turn the tables on these encounters by making them opportunities for the child to learn how to make a persuasive argument. Make them state their case in order to get whatever it is they want…or don’t!"

My students always love to create trading cards, so I suspect many will enjoy the Summer Reading Trading Card Creator:

"Summer and reading go together like peanut butter and jelly. With this activity, children can extend the pleasure of a summer reading book and launch a favorite character into a new story.  The Trading Card interactive helps children analyze a character to identify traits such as appearance, feelings, and actions. Next, the child will use the same method to focus on a real-life character – a friend, relative, or even a famous person. What would happen if the book character and the real-life character met? That’s where the story begins."

And Finally, the Summer Superheroes:

"Children will create a superhero who has summer-specific powers and then build a story around him or her. Comic books and movies can provide a jumping-off point. Interactive tools will help children cover all the basics of a complete story – characters, setting, conflict, resolution, theme, etc. And because it’s summer, a favorite vacation spot will make the perfect setting."

Thinkfinity also offers over a dozen wonderful interactive Science games, with names like: Antibiotic Attack, Gravity Launch, A Touch of Class, and Zap!  The link to the list can be found here:

Which activity did you like best?  Comment below...