Ever wish you could transport your students into the fascinating world of creepy crawlies? Well, hold on to your antennae because this week's Tech Tools for Teachers podcast is about to un-bee-lievably scratch that itch!
And so I was doing some instructional coaching in with a third grade classroom that was prepping to go on a marsh field trip, speaking of field trips, and the kids are all researching before they go. So they're looking at different animals, plants, bugs, birds, Things like that before they went on their marsh field trip.
So they inspired me for a very fast, but fun episode. So this one is focused K 5 teachers, middle school teachers. You could definitely like send the kids to the side. It'd be fun for them, but they won't have the intent. Like it will be after 10 minutes, they will be probably over it. But sometimes. You need to look up pests, and sometimes they're acting like pests, so you could do whatever you want with that.
Um, so it is called PestWorldforKids. org, and it's so fun! It's
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It's very kid friendly and easy to navigate and they can like crank through it. So best world for kids.org, we'll go to games first because really that's where we're all gonna go anyway. . If you click on games, they've got interactive pests and insect games. There's a bug builder, there's sorting bugs, there's crush that bug.
And you just click on it. Crush that bug is like candy crush. So y'all know what you're going to be doing with crushing bugs.
And so crush that bug, pick your level. And that gives you your instructions again, very user friendly start. And then it's just like Candy Crush and you're squishing mice and ants and beetles and mosquitoes and mosquitoes to crush 30.
So they give you double score for next move. Anyway, and I can already tell you are crushing bugs, so you can crush the bugs. There is Archibald's Adventure, there's Pest Rangers, there's Pest Detectives, there's Bug Biology Quizzes, there's Insect Trivia Quizzes, so there's all kinds of cool interactive learning games, along with just fun games that all deal with bugs and insects, which is pretty cool.
If you have kids researching, so if when you're on the homepage and you clicked on pest info, they have pest guides and articles, the pest guide is kind of cool. It gives you like a layout, bugs and critters, A to Z, from ants to wasps and everything in between. So they have mice, and lice, and moths, and opossums, and pill bugs, and gophers, and flies, and fleas, and earwigs.
I feel like I sound like Dr. Seuss right now. And so like, I'll click on mosquitoes. They have mosquito facts for kids so they can do research on them. It's kind of good to know. What's, you know, what's out there in the summertime, or if you're taking an outside walk or hike with the kids, they can go ahead and do a little research.
They have a little download pest ID card, and you can download this cool little, they have little ID cards for each of the pests, and it gives you kind of quick stats about them, what region they're found in, the shapes, and then it gives you an overview and prevention. So some of that might be kind of helpful to have the kids could each have their own pest car to maybe find some outside.
I'm sure mosquitoes, they can just stand there. The mosquitoes will come to them. They don't have to go very far. But it also gives like their diet and their habitat, impacts on the earth, what they do, those types of things. So they each have their own little, like, little research spot, which is cool, in the pest list from pests A to Z.
They also have pest articles, so if you want to build it into science or just have them do a little research or you can have them break it down in groups and each one reads a little article. They are all kid friendly, so how do ants communicate with each other? Kind of cool. They have a little online article, Five Ways Ants Communicate, and then the kids can actually practice that.
That would be kind of fun. So there's just lots of different information. They also have a glossary, which would be really helpful if kids are looking up from allergen, to asthma, to Brood, colony, it gives them definitions for all of those, and there's even some information, like it talks about a brood of cicadas, which here in the Midwest.
It's what everyone's talking about. Cicadas are showing up this year.
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Again, we're getting to the end of the school year. We love to send a craft home. We love a craft to stay busy. They have from ladybug crowns to bug finger puppets to dangling spiders, to fly swatters, to pine cone squirrels, because everybody needs a pine cone squirrel on their desk, bug houses, spider wreaths.
The Nutty Squirrel craft game.
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Anyway, there's all the different pests that they talk about.
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And so it's a really cool way to learn about the different pests around the world and insects and rodents and small wildlife and each episode, they're like little junior scientists that go through and share it, which is neat and kind of fun. Not only do they have pest quest, but they have. Bug Battles.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, red meat, yeah. So, I could be wrong, but
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category, they've got fast food. Will termites have the same craving for fast food as humans do? Watch as we introduce termites to it.
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They have a section for parents, so you could welcome this to be a good thing to send home in the summer.
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It gives you a step by step process. For that, they've got a teacher section, so they have lesson plans, they have elementary activities, they do have some middle school activities for, Some of those kids, that they're going to use this as research. They can go ahead and do that. So there are things for middle school teachers or middle school teachers as well, and they have pest quizzes.
So you want to do fun, like, good luck, bug biology. What can you do? Hooray. Hooray. I want some bug biology. So again, pest world. It's a very easy, fun thing, you can build it in at the end of the school year here when you're outside more often, you can use it during science throughout the year if you choose to, it'd be a great thing and a choice board for kids to dig into, you're going on an outside field trip, they can, you know, have them all researching mosquitoes, by the end of it, you're going to have so many experts in mosquitoes, it's going to be fabulous.
Yes,
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Spanning 32, 000 acres, and uh, and
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Your kids will have fun and I'm sure they'll share lots of really fun information. So there you go. Thanks for tuning in. This has been the tech tools for teachers podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me. On the app formerly known as Twitter, X, smartinwi, or on Threads, Threads, or on Instagram, Instagram, or on Facebook, Facebook, pick a social media platform, social media, if you want to get more information on the links to the technology discussed in this episode, you can visit smartinwi.
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Visit buymeacoffee. com slash smartinwi or visit smartinwi. com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep this show going. New episodes each week. Thanks for listening. Go educate and innovate.
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Prior to using any of the technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations. This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you. To subscribe, but we sure hope they do. And we'll talk to you next time right here on the Tech Pools for Teachers podcast.
