Archive for November, 2006

BrainPOP

Published by Scott on November 30, 2006 in Chatter and Web Sites. 2 Comments

timmoby.jpgBrainPOP is one of my favorite educational resources. The real draw of the site is the over five hundred animated movies in which Tim and his robot sidekick Moby explain everything from ions to how to read a newspaper. Each short does an excellent job in visually presenting a topic and explaining it in easy to understand terms.

Tim and Moby are plenty funny, mixing slapstick gags and jokes with their lessons. I especially love the nerd humor. In the measurement movie, for example, Tim begins explaining estimating lengths by saying, “Now most people don’t carry measuring tools with them wherever they go,” to which Moby beeps in protest. “Yeah, but that’s different,” continues Tim. “This is my lucky ruler.”

The site is organized by subject, including science, social studies, English, math, arts & music, health, and technology. In addition to the cartoon, there is also a comic, some activity ideas, and even a pop quiz for each topic. And while the site is primarily aimed at grades 3-12, I have used select material with my second graders and they had no difficulty understanding it.

Unfortunately BrainPop is subscription based. There are some free movies available in each subject but you get cut off after viewing a couple and prompted to subscribe. The good news is that you can sign up for a free 14 day trial and don’t even have to give any credit card information to do so.

Many school districts, including the one I work in, have subscriptions and will provide parents with password and login information so that students may access it from home. You can see if your local school is a subscriber by looking here. I should also mention that you can only log in this way during school hours, which end at roughly 5:00. So if you’re looking for homework help later in the evening, you’re out of luck unless you purchase a home subscription for $9.95/month or $99.00/year.

Although they’re a little stingy there at BrainPOP headquarters, it is quite an awesome site and highly recommended. Next time I’ll take a look at its spinoff for the primary grades, BrainPOP Jr.

The Marvelous Land Of Oz - L. Frank Baum (1904)

Published by Scott on November 29, 2006 in Chatter and Fiction. 0 Comments

9780064409636.jpgMy boys and I are officially caught up in L. Frank Baum’s classic series. We just can’t get enough! They are truly remarkable works of imagination and hold up quite well a century later. We’re actually reading the fourth book right now but I’ve been meaning to post about this second one while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Baum writes in his introduction that he received so many letters from fans begging for further adventures of their favorite characters in the land of Oz that he had no choice but to give it another go. I think it helped that the book and stage adaptation were financially very successful. I’ve read that Baum wrote The Marvelous Land of Ozwith a future stage version in mind and that’s why it features the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow so prominently. They were the real stars of the first play.

The Land of Oz, as it’s sometimes referred to and published as, is the only book in the series in which Dorothy is absent. In her place as the human protagonist is a boy named Tip. The new, unofficial wicked witch is Mombi, whose magic Powder of Life helps create the perpetually worried Jack Pumpkinhead, trusty steed Sawhorse, and a morose flying monstrosity known as Gump. Also introduced are the Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated Wogglebug and General Jinjur, a proto-feminist whose army of knitting needle wielding girls ousts Scarecrow from his position as king of the Emerald City. Good witch Glinda also makes another appearance and plays a key role near the end of the tale.

Plotting is a little looser this time around, but just as in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz the heroes gradually meet up with one another. Together they come across fantastic creatures in strange lands and must extricate themselves from a host of scrapes.

One of the most striking aspects of this Oz book is its humor. There are some truly funny verbal exchanges. The Wogglebug, for example, is overly fond of puns, most of them groan inducing, and Tip’s chagrined reactions and subsequent threats are hilarious. And the scene in which Jack Pumpkinhead and Scarecrow first meet each other is pure comic gold. They speak through a translator because after all they are from different lands and therefore must speak different languages. The translator purposefully mangles what they say into insults and they slowly realize that they not only understand each other perfectly well but are in fact speaking the same language!

Another difference I noticed, in comparison to the first book, is the sophisticated language. Young readers would certainly struggle to get through it independently. I’ll guestimate that it’s at least at a fifth grade reading level. As a read-aloud book though it’s well suited for audiences a couple of years younger than that.

Marvin Redpost: Kidnapped At Birth? - Louis Sachar (1992)

Published by Scott on November 28, 2006 in Books, Chatter and Fiction. 0 Comments

n58839.jpgEight year old Marvin Redpost learns from a current events newspaper in class that the King of Shampoon is searching for his red haired son who was kidnapped as an infant eight years ago. Marvin happens to have red hair and looks nothing like the rest of his family. Could he be the lost prince?

The plot is pretty far fetched but Kidnapped at Birth?is the perfect book to generate some critical thinking and discussion for the six to eight year old set. It’s just ambiguous enough for young readers to have to make a decision about whether or not Marvin could actually be Prince Robert. There are some clues that maybe support the remote possibility but plenty of arguments against it.

I read this to my class and most of my students believed that Marvin had been kidnapped as a baby. I had them write a journal entry to explain their position and offer evidence to back it up. It was an excellent activity because it really forced them to think about the events and details from the story. They were excited about it too because each child was convinced that he or she was right.

Most kids failed to pick up on perhaps the most important clue in the story: Marvin only said he was Prince Robert to distract his friends and keep them from fighting. From there he gets caught up in the idea through his peers’ encouragement. I don’t think he ever actually believes he’s heir to the Shampoon throne. But maybe I’m wrong…

Metroid: Zero Mission (2004, GBA)

Published by Scott on November 27, 2006 in Chatter and Video Games. 4 Comments

00081085.jpgAbout a year and a half ago one of my co-workers felt sorry for me because I lacked one of modern life’s basic necessities- a video game console. He lent me his Nintendo GameCube (he had moved on to the X-Box and didn’t play it anymore) along with a couple of games. Ducks + Water = No turning back. The lads and I have been junkies ever since. We bought our own GameCube shortly after and this past summer each of them got a GameBoy Advance SP.

You might argue that we should have picked up one Nintendo DS instead of two GBAs, since you can play GBA games on it, but I don’t regret the decision. There are still a ton of games on both of our previous generation consoles for us to pick up before moving on to the DS or Wii. And most importantly, no one has to wait around for a turn to play a GameBoy! Two of everything has kind of been our MO for the twins from the start, although I must say they are pretty awesome about sharing stuff.

Anyway, I’ve been plugging away at Metroid: Zero Missionfor the past couple of weeks and finally finished it off. I say “finally” because I really only get a chance to play when the kids are in bed, by which time I’m pretty tired myself. So a few minutes here and there and about seven hours total. Like quite a few games out there it keeps track of how much time you play (or how much time you waste when you could be writing blog posts, heh heh.) That might sound kind of short for a contemporary game but it’s a very satisfying little adventure and has plenty of replay value. For example, there are different endings that can be unlocked based on how long it takes to beat and/or the percentage of extra items found. You can also unlock the original NES Metroid! Seeing how it was only nine bucks (used) at Gamestop and that three of us are playing it, I’d say we are getting our money’s worth.

c7967f5a-6aa8-4656-8ac7-f231927abcec.jpgSo what’s it all about? Zero Mission is a fantastic remake of the original NES Metroid, a 2D space adventure pitting interstellar bounty hunter Samus Aran against various creatures, including evil Space Pirates and the creepy, soul-sucking jellyfish-like metroids. As with all of the Metroid titles, you spend much of the time searching for various weapons, upgrades, and equipment. These in turn help you defeat the different boss monsters and allow you to get to (or find) previously inaccessible passages and levels. The puzzle solving aspect is one of the coolest things about the franchise and helps it transcend the mindless and repetitious zapping of enemy after enemy that some games require. It does involve some patience though as there is a fair amount of backtracking. And this Metroid title has a wicked cool surprise at the “end” that I won’t spoil for you. I’ll tell you this much- just when you think you’ve got it beat, plan on playing for a bit longer with a whole new set of challenges.

I can justify most video games in some way as more than just recreational time killers, and this one is no exception. For Zero Mission the list of desirable skills fostered include reading text and maps, forward/reverse thinking, goal setting, trial/error problem solving, and of course hand-eye coordination. There’s also gender stereotype smashing as Samus is not a man, as you might expect, but an ass-kicking woman! My seven, almost eight, year old kids had some difficulty beating it, especially when trying to get past the last couple of bosses, so there was a significant amount of perseverance required. Oh, and it’s a whole lot of fun too!

ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone (fantasy violence)