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Home  Awards & Grants Children's Notable Lists Great Interactive Software for Kids 2006 Notable Computer Software for Children
2006 Notable Computer Software for Children
Alphabet Track
Eye Track
Phoneme Track
Tool Factory, Inc.
www.toolfactory.com
PC/MAC
These three programs are part of a series designed for use in the inclusive classroom, home schooling, and for students with dyslexia, dyspraxia, and other visual or learning challenges. Created in England, users can choose a British or American accent for the narrator who guides them along. Fun graphics and increasingly difficult activities make these sure winners with kids. Excellent booklets aid users in their endeavors.
Eye Track invites children to help apprehend the villain Ronnie Retina through various visual puzzles requiring matching, identifying and exploring to improve visual perception.
In Phoneme Track the charmingly odd “potatoes in a bucket" egg children on to learn their phonemes by building words, manipulating sounds and replacing phonemes to make other words thereby increasing the users’ abilities to read and write. (This is best with headphones if being used in classroom or other active room.)
Alphabet Track encourages children to practice their letters by matching upper and lower case letters and by spelling words. The program reinforces alphabet awareness and visual and auditory sequencing. Ages 5 and up.
Charles W. Morgan: Voyages of the Past, Present and Future
Mystic Seaport Museum
www.mysticseaport.org
Look under the museum store- audio and visual.
1-800-331-2665
MacIntosh and PC Compatible
The Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, a national historic landmark, comes to life in this vivid interactive CD-ROM. Built in 1841 in New Bedford, Mass., the Morgan has become a prime destination for school visits. The Morgan now sails into computers (at home, at school, or at sea) with great grace and ease. This excellent CD-ROM loads easily and includes virtual 3-D tours, detailed blueprints of the whole ship, knot-making lessons, games, music, historic video clips, and recommended resources and Web sites. Ages 8 and up.
Essay Express: Strategies for Successful Essay Writing
FableVision
www.fablevision.com/essayexpress
1-888-240-3734
Join the Rotten Green Peppers band on their tour of expository writing, highlighting the importance of brainstorming, organizing information, and using supporting details in order to write short essays. With humor, music, and engaging graphics, these strategy based exercises present a manageable process to build students’ abilities and increase confidence in essay writing. Features printable worksheets. Ages 9 and up.
Britannica 2006
Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.
www.britannica.com
The Ultimate Reference Suite DVD is comprehensive, interactive, up-to-date. Contains three reference libraries for elementary students, secondary students, and adults. Each level includes an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, timelines, a research organizer, audio clips, videos, and Web links. The elementary level also features games and activities that support the content found elsewhere in this resource. Always reliable, this updated edition of Britannica does not disappoint. All ages.
2006 Notable Online Subscription Services
Grolier Online
Grolier
go.grolier.com
1-888-326-6546
This $2 million upgrade features age-appropriate home pages, enhanced graphics, and updated and expanded content. Includes perennial favorites Lands and Peoples, New Book of Popular Science, Nueva encyclopedia Cumbre, America the Beautiful, along with the three standard encyclopedias from Grolier. Provides two interfaces for the encyclopedia—Kids (grades 3-5) and Passport (grades 6 and up).
Each offers a number of resources such as online links, fact boxes, homework help desk, photos, videos, maps, and timelines. Activities include science projects, puzzles and games, quizzes, and recipes. Spanish language features are for native speakers and for intermediate or advanced Spanish-language students.
2006 Notable Computer Software for Children Committee: Chair Kirsten Cutler, Sonoma County Library, Rohnert Park, Calif.; Diana Berry, Oak View Elementary School, Decatur, Ga.; Becki Bishop, Bassett, Va.; Ann Crewdson, King County Library System, Issaquah, Wash.; Nancy J. Johnson, Western Washington University, Bellingham; Don Latham, School of Information Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee; and Bina Williams, Bridgeport (Conn.) Public Library.
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