Monday, July 16, 2012

Switcheroo Zoo

I just spent the last 30 minutes playing on this awesome site! Switcheroo Zoo has games, videos, lesson plans, animal profiles, and more!

Build your own animal:
Facts about the animals you choose are listed in the blue boxes. Once you've finished you can take a picture of your animal, and there's an option to Add a title and add a story. There are even sample poems and stories that students have submitted. How cool is this?! I could definitely see having my kids create Pourquoi tales about their new animals like, "How the Zebeara Lost its Stripes." (No, spellchecker, I didn't misspell my new animal's name :)

Watch videos and listen to animal sounds and music:

I LOVED Dance of the Sugar Plum Furry!


Build and Online Habitat:
Change the animal, plants, weather, and location. What's great about this is that animal gives you feedback as you change the habitat! My lizard is telling me that he'll get eaten quickly in this habitat. 

There are so many great ways to use this site:
  • Learn facts about different animals during your animal unit.
  • Learn about habitats by actually constructing them.
  • Create new animals for fun!
  • Write stories or poems.
  • Do research for projects or reports.
  • Practice map skills and learn about endangered species
  • Learn about carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, and scavengers.
For even more ideas visit their lesson plans page. I am so excited to have found this site and can't wait to put it to use next year! How about you? How do you see yourself using something great like this?

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