First, I'd like to thank all my loyal readers for sticking with me despite my recent online hiatus. Holy smokies has life been busy! Between traveling, leading workshops and trying to cram in all the Christmas events that I can (think drinking hot chocolate, gift shopping and get togethers with family & friends) I've sadly been living life in the real world and neglected my online self. But I'm baaaack!
I also want to throw out the suspicion that my last blog post was November 25th? (!) I think not. In fact, I'm quite confident that I wrote at least 3 other posts between then and now that have simply vanished into thin air. I've got a couple of techie almost-hackerish friends that I'll be interrogating later this weekend! But alas, I do not recall what their topics were (must have been FAN-tab-u-lous) so here we are back at square one. And back to reinstating my weekly review of an interactive website that I fondly refer to as Fresh Look Fridays.
Amidst my wonderful travels all over the 2 prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, I was fortunate enough to spend 2 whole days with nearly 80 teachers in Regina. As per usual, my workshops often lead to me learning as much as I share with the participants and a wonderful teacher by the name of Lisa Reid (you're famous now!), shared a great little interactive site that she uses on her SMART Board.
Enter the Switcheroo Zoo -- a fun website that's akin to Build Your Wild Self, only this time, students start out with an animal and swap out for various other animal parts.
What I really love about this site is that it's multifaceted -- read: differentiated -- for different levels of learners. Learn through a guided tour, spend some time experimenting yourself or build an animal together with a small group of students to encourage collaboration. There's also tons of different activities ranging from simple knowledge and understanding features to analysis and creation activities. My personal fave? The Switch Zoo.
Voila! Your all-in-one activity pack to use as a nice supplementary interactive component to an animals or habitats unit. Take some time this weekend to play around on it and experience the the variety of activities that it has to offer.
Thanks again Lisa for introducing me to this site!
Have a safe and happy weekend, everyone!
Vanessa
