Gail+Purcell

=Website Reviews: 10-19-09= Website: [|Edhelper.com] URL: [] Subject Area and Grade Level: All Subject Areas including special education. Type of Site: Teacher Resource Site Description: Edhelper is a website that provides tools for teaching. The teacher must pay for an annual membership to the site. The site provides worksheets, puzzles, games, books, and art projects. It allows the teacher to input information such as weekly spelling words and generates activities using those words. It also saves the information so the teacher may go back and use information in unit reviews. In addition the site provides resources for all subject areas including social skills for special education.

Website: [|National Library of Virtual Manipulatives] URL: [] Subject Area and Grade Level: Math Pre-K-12 Type of Site: Interactive Site Description: National Library of Virtual Manipulatives or NLVM is a math website that uses virtual manipulatives with math activities. This site has activities for number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. The information is presented with written word instructions and alignment to standards. The manipulatives are colorful and interactive. This site can be used independently for older students and with support for younger students and students with disabilities.

Website: [|Starfall.com] URL: [] Subject Area and Grade Level: Reading K through 2nd Grade. (Early Reading) Type of Site: Interactive Site Description: Starfall.com is an early reading website that is interactive. The site uses colorful pictures, music, voiceover audio, and animation to help students learn the letters of the alphabet, learn the letter sounds, learn phonics and early reading skills. Students can listen and watch, play interactive games, and enjoy interactive reading activities. This site is geared toward students in the early reading stages of their academics. It is also excellent for students with learning disabilities.

Website: [|Lesson Planet] URL: [] Subject Area and Grade Level: All subject areas and grades K-12. Type of Site: Teacher Resource Site Description: This site is claims to be a teacher search engine. You must pay an annual feel to use the site. Teachers are able to post lesson plans in all subject areas and if you are a member you may use the lesson plans to get ideas of your own. The lessons are aligned with the standards. In addition to this the website provides worksheets and areas to create lessons. This site is set up similar to black board in the sense that lessons are posted and others are able to download them.

Website: [|Coolmath.com] URL: [] Subject Area and Grade Level: Math K-12 Type of Site: Interactive and Instructional Site Description: Cool Math is a large website that hosts seven other websites total. This site is designed to make math fun and interesting for those who struggle with math and for those who enjoy math and want to be more challenged. The site has 1000 pages of content. This site has games, puzzles, lesson plans, math practice, a math dictionary, and math books. This site is designed for students, teachers and parents. This site is a colorful use of animation, music and interaction using math.

Website: [|Fun Brain] URL: [] Subject Area and Grade Level: Math and Reading K-8 Type of Site: Interactive Site Description: Fun Brain is an interactive online arcade that has reading and math games for students K-8th. The site allows the user to choose their grade and gender and provides games at that particular level and interest. This site is animated with some sound but does not have music the way some other sites do. In addition the creators have set up a place to blog about the different areas of the site. The blogs are set up according age and gender.

Website: [|MacMillan Treasures] URL: [] Subject and Grade Level: Reading K-6 Type of Sight: Instructional Sight Description: This site is set up through the MacMillan-McGraw Hill Companies. The instruction on this site is aligned with their K-6 reading series. The activities on this site are set up by chapter and unit in each reader. The activities are designed to be used in the classroom as support for academic instruction for each reading chapter. Students can use this website at home or in the classroom. The site is animated with music and voiceovers. This is an excellent site to help teachers to technologically support their reading instruction.

Website: [|PBS Kids] URL: [] Subject and Grade Level: Early Reading and Math K-2 Type of Sight: Interactive Sight Description: This site is designed by the Public Broadcasting Systems and uses a variety of characters from Sesame Street and other popular books and cartoons. Some examples of these characters are Clifford, The Count, Elmo, and Mr. Rogers. This site is colorfully animated with voiceovers and music. This site has a myriad of games and puzzles designed to help students have fun while learning. This site also has printable coloring pages that go along with the games and puzzles.

Website: [|CA$H OUT] URL: [] Subject and Grade Level: Math (Money) 3-12 // (For students who understand how to make change) // Type of Sight: Interactive Sight Description: This site is a simple site that only focuses on how to make change. The site is set up with an easy, medium, or hard ability level. The user can choose to see hints and change amounts. The site has colorful but simple animations and sounds. The student must be able to read or must have support with using this website. The site helps students learn how to give back change when a cartoon character purchases milk, candy bars etc.

Website: [|Enchanted Learning] URL: [] Subject and Grade Level: All Subject Areas K-12 Type of Site: Teacher Resource Description of Site: This site is similar to ED Helper in the sense that it provides a wide range of books, activities, arts, crafts, and worksheet activities for teachers. It has over 20,000 pages of information. This site also has an annual fee. In addition, this site includes in a wide range of languages.

Sesame Street: Elmo’s Reading The purpose of this software is to help students practice reading readiness skills. The grade levels for the software are preschool and kindergarten but I have found that it works for first and second grade students and also student with intellectual disabilities K-5th grade. If a student is has an emotional age of K-2nd this software is appropriate. Elmo’s Reading falls under instructional game. This program allows students to play matching games with letters and sounds at an easy, medium, and hard level. Elmo’s Reading is best used in my classroom as a reading center. This allows students to practice letters and their sounds while having fun. This allows the students to play while learning independently. This could also be used in my classroom as a free time activity or as a way for students to de-escalate when they are feeling overwhelmed in the regular education classroom. Our first grade regular education teacher uses this software as a center as well.

The strengths of this program are that it is leveled into easy, medium, and hard, it is colorful and interactive using Sesame characters that who do not go out of date and it is a program that can be used independently by students with computer skills. It is also repetitive and is very good for students with intellectual disabilities. The weaknesses of the this program that I can see are simply that it can be viewed as not age appropriate for older students with disabilities. I think it is important to allow students who are still emotionally young enough to enjoy it. This program can be purchased online at The Discount Toy Store online at [|http://www.thediscounttoystore.com/ChildrensSoftware_229548_B00000JLAR_Elmos-Reading-Preschool-Kindergarten.html] for $6.95 for used software. Elmo’s reading can be found at [|www.creativewonders.com]. System requirements for this program are a computer with a working CD ROM and a mouse. This program can run using Windows.

Fisher Price Power Wheels Off Road Adventure
The purpose of this software is to help children promote imaginative play, encourages creativity, builds problems-solving skills, and teaches cause-and-effect relationships. This program is designed for children who are ages four through seven. I have also found that this program can be used with students with intellectual disabilities. If a student has an emotional age that is appropriate for the program is useful. I think this software falls under the problems solving. The program can also be used with two players so it can help promote healthy age-appropriate competition. Off Road Adventure should only be used in free time activities. I do not see that it can be used as an academic tool. This software can be used mostly to support social skills during competitive play. This program can be used for students up through 3rd grade. It can be used for students who have intellectual disabilities as well. This isn’t my favorite software program and would only integrate it as an activity during a free time or an indoor recess. In my opinion, the strengths of program are that it is fun and students really enjoy playing the game. This program can be used with students with disabilities and can promote competitive play, creativity, and some problem solving skills. The cons to this game are that it is not academically based. I would not use this program to support any math, reading or writhing activities. Although it does promote problems solving skills, I think that there are better ways to accomplish this. This program costs $ 4.67 and can be purchased online at Amazon.com at []

Dr. Suess Kindergarten
The purpose of this software is to help students learn basic reading and math skills with fun and interactive computer activities. According to the pamphlet this program, will help children “work their way through activities that help them learn the alphabet, phonics, reading, skills, sorting, classifying, pattern recognition, measurement and estimation, addition and subtraction.” The appropriate grade levels are K-2nd grade. As with the other software programs this is an excellent program for students with disabilities up to 5th grade depending on their emotional age.

Dr. Seuss Kindergarten can be classified as an instructional game. It also keeps track of the student’s progress as they move through the activities.

I think that Dr. Seuss Kindergarten would be best used as a follow up to a math or reading lesson. I could also use this program as a center during times when I have different children at different levels that need one on one instruction. This program is an excellent tool that can be used in many different ways.

In my opinion, the strengths of Dr. Seuss Kindergarten are great. This program challenges students in a large array of academic areas in a fun and interesting way. This program uses Dr. Seuss characters to make learning fun. In addition to helping children in reading and math this program has a progress-monitoring component that allows you to see your child’s progress as they work through the activities. I feel that this program has any weaknesses. I think that Dr. Seuss Kindergarten is an excellent program. This program costs $8.54 and be purchased at Amazon.com at []. This program requires a 3.1 or Windows 95 66MHz 486DX or faster Minimus 20MB hard disk space 2X CD-Rom drive or faster. The manufacturer can be found at [].

Busy Town
The purpose of Busy Town according to the User Guide is to “practice and develop Language/Pre-Reading skills, Mathematical Concepts, Problem Solving skills, Social and Emotional Development, Physical and Motor Development, Art and Music.” In addition to this program includes eleven different neighborhoods with adding, subtracting, measuring, counting, directionality, pattern matching, problem solving, and reading. Busy Town helps students learn through play. This software is for students who are in preschool and Kindergarten. Students with disabilities at a younger emotional age can benefit from this program depending on their emotional age. Busy Town falls under the category of instructional game. This is a game for students at a young age. I can use Busy Town with my students who are still learning pre academic skills. I also think that is program would work well particularly with my students who are still in need of learning fine motor skills while incorporating art, music and problem solving skills. I can also use this program as practice after a math or reading lesson. In my classroom I can use this program with all students except for my fourth and fifth grade students because the program is not age appropriate for them anymore. I can use this as a free time activity or as a center. In my opinion, the strengths of this program are in the physical and fine motor development. This is particularly good for students with disabilities. I am able to use this program with students who are sill unable to more difficult programs. I addition this program is a winner of the Parent’s Choice Award and is aligned with the National Association for the Education of Young Children. I do not see any weaknesses in this program at this time. This program costs $3.00 and can be found on Amazon.com at [|http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&unfiltered=1&field-keywords=&field-author=&field-title=&field-isbn=0-671-31812-8&field-publisher=&node=&url=&field-feature_browse-bin=&field-binding_browse-bin=&field-subject=&field-language=&field-dateop=&field-datemod=&field-dateyear=&sort=relevancerank&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0] The system requirements for Busy Town are Windows 98/95 Pentium 133 or faster, direct x 6.0, 32MB RAM, 640x480 16 bit color or better, 4x CD-ROM drive or better, Windows compatible sound card, mouse. Macintosh 32 MB RAM, System 7.5, 1 or higher, 640x480, 16-bit color, 4x CD ROM drive or better, mouse. The manufacturer can be found at [].

Boardmaker is a program that is designed for teachers to use with students with disabilities. The age level is not designated and helps parents and teacher design image based activities. With this program a teacher can use worksheets, books, schedules, writing activities, games, and other activities that prompt and support students as they learn. Boardmaker falls under the category of drill and practice, although it can also be used as an instructional game. This program can be used as an instructional tool to develop practice quizzes for lessons taught during the week. I can also be used to aid in building worksheets that can be used during instructional lessons. It can also be used to make an image schedule that helps students with disabilities know where to go and when. This program can also be used as a tool during a writing lesson for students who are not able to read. This program can also be used as instructional support after a lesson or as a center. One of the strengths of this program is that it can be used at home and at school and the teacher, parents, and the students can use it. It covers a large range of ways to meet the needs of students with disabilities. The weakness of this program is that it has a very high price. This program costs $246.00 and can be found at []. The system requirements of this program are the operating systems Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, OS X, CD ROM, Sound Card, Mouse and IGB of hard drive space.
 * Boardmaker Plus **

Comment by Christina Lochow Gail, thank you for reviewing Elmo's Reading. We use that program at home and I simply love it - I am a true Sesamestreet fan! My daughter enjoys the colorful Sesame characters and the fact that she can practise on different difficulty levels. I really liked your description of how you are using the software with your special needs students on different levels depending on their individual emotional age and intellectual disabilities. I also read your Dr. Seuss review with great interest. We have several Dr. Seuss books at home but I have not used the software. The price is really good and I will look further into it. Thank you for your reviews.