Blue ribbon software

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 1998 by Richards, Judy K

This month, Teaching KG highlights the software selections of a teacher in Upland, California. and another in Charleston, West Virginia.

Finally, an all in one writing, painting, drawing, graphing, lists and fun activity program for kids. ClarisWorks for Kids by Claris Corporation contains everything children age five to eleven need to be productive, creative, organized and still have fun!

Let your children's creativity blossom when they create their own reports, books and illustrations by using the tools provided in the Art Pad. They can add graphs with the Graphing Pad or create masterpieces with the hundreds of pieces of clip art provided.

Your students can add excitement to their writing using sound and movie clips to create multimedia presentations using the Writing Pad. Keeping track of vocabulary or researching endangered animals is easy with the List Pad. This kid-friendly software is complete with penmanship fonts, lined paper templates, friendly letter templates and larger menus and icons. Student produced text can even be read aloud by the computer.

Keeping organized with Claris Works for Kids is easy for teachers and students. My students just pull up the Old Work folder to locate tasks they need to add to or complete. New Work? Just create a folder for each student and watch his or her portfolio grow! With the Web Tools, the World Wide Web can be accessed with just a mouse click.

Is all this productivity fun? Absolutely! Students can choose from over 75 fun activities covering all areas of the curriculum. During our fairy tale unit, my students listened to "Beauty and the Beast" being read to them while they tracked the print on the screen. In January my first graders learned about Martin Luther King. They made timelines and wrote short reports about Dr. King and that particular time in history in which he lived. Students can choose to write a letter to the President or take a walk on the moon and design their own lunar landscape!

I found this productivity program to be limitless in its possibilities, making integration of the curriculum seem almost effortless. It's documents are compatible with ClarisWorks 4.0 for a smooth transition.

To explore the software and secure more information, visit Claris at www.claris. com/k12

Another review by first grade teacher, Judy Richards:

It's March Madness time! Take advantage of the excitement surrounding college basketball playoffs with Slam Dunk Typing by Creative Wonders. Sign on to a team, choose one of 10 skill levels from beginner to All-Star, and learn keyboarding with fast-paced basketball drills that emphasize speed, accuracy and correct finger position.

Students complete typing exercises as they pass, make free throws, and complete slam dunk drills. Each typing drill simulates a basketball skill as students practice typing basketball terms, players' names, and descriptive phrases and sentences about basketball. Players can test their keyboarding skills in a simulated All-Star Game, pass a ball by correctly typing a letter that appears on screen or type the word appearing on a basketball before it can bounce on the court. Defensive drills involve typing a word correctly to block the opposing team's shot. There is even a basketball newspaper where student reporters must retype a news story and are timed to determine their accuracy and words per minute.

A constant throughout the program is the coach who talks the players through each drill, providing directions, monitoring progress and offering suggestions for improvement.

As a teacher, I really like the assessment charts. Player statistics for accuracy and speed are reported after each drill and a Seasonal Stats Sheet will show current speed and a finger chart graphing the percent accuracy for each finger to help pinpoint trouble spots in finger placement.

For more information, or to play an interactive slam dunk game online, visit the web site at www.creative wonders.com.

Columnist Linda Lindroth wanted to review this product herself.

Bringing books to life is a major goal of teachers in the primary classroom. The Art Lesson CD by MECC is a wonderful interactive CD-ROM where the pages of Tomie dePaola's book comes to life with animation, music and sound.

This electronic production of the popular picture book is narrated by the author and illustrator. Students learn about the young Tomie and his life. From the Main Menu students can read the book from first page to last, choose to visit any of the pages of the book, enter an interactive artist's tool chest, take a tour of Tomie's studio or interview dePaola. The book can be read and heard in English or Spanish.

As students turn the pages, the story unfolds and the beautiful illustrations become animated with a click of the mouse. Nearly every page activates a drawing tool (chalk, crayon, paint brush) and takes students to an interactive art studio where they can use various art media to create their own art and illustrations with 14 entertaining activities.

Art activities include illustrating pictures with chalk on a sidewalk, adding features to faces, creating jack-o'lanterns, learning to draw animals, mixing colors of paint to create one's own art palette, putting together a potato head character and creating a leaf collage with rubber stamps. Events in the book generate each of the art activities. The art studio tools include a light bulb icon which generates ideas for pictures and a redraw tool that animates a student drawing step-by-step.