Viewing entries tagged
THIRTEEN

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Welcome to FableVision’s Summer Camp!

As sunlight fills the days after 15 months of COVID-19, we’re looking forward to an engaging and exciting summer. To ensure that your children continue to learn while they’re on break, we created FableVision’s Summer Camp—a compilation of resources, including educational animated series, games, softwares, and videos.

Help your children have a fun summer by supporting their creativity, sparking their imagination, and encouraging their interest in new things. Whether they enjoy animals, engineering, or meteorology (just to name a few)—we’ve got you covered with a variety of free/low-cost activities that can be enjoyed by your family! 

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PBS KIDS Parent Activities Videos
Saturn’s rings, puzzle boxes, Yup’ik dance fans, and more—these live-action videos produced for PBS KIDS’ website for parents provide fun and educational crafts to create with your children using household materials and art supplies. In tandem with their favorite PBS KIDS shows, like Molly of Denali or Elinor Wonders Why, families can complete hands-on activities, while learning about central themes of the shows and discussing important questions. Grab your crayons, glue, and scissors and follow the easy steps in the videos—it’s time to make butterfly costumes and periscopes.

The instructional videos are available for free on PBS KIDS for Parents.

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The Paper Girls Show
How about a summer trip to Confetti, a beautiful world built entirely out of paper? In the FableVision and Global Tinker animated series The Paper Girls Show, best friends Cailey and Reese travel to Confetti to visit their paper friends Kami and Dev. Together they creatively invent solutions applicable to the real world. Each episode features a new type of technology, such as 3D printers and robots, and the series infuses STEAM curricula that inspires young girls to explore arts, science, programming, and engineering. 

Watch the series for free on YouTube.

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UCAR Animated Atmosphere
As summer brings heat waves and hurricanes to New England, help your children understand the weather by watching Animated Atmosphere videos, created for University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). To describe extreme weather and how to stay safe, the animated videos feature a weatherman yeti showing cold weather conditions, a dog demonstrating how to take care of pets, and a palm tree illustrating the effects of tropical storms. Humor, cute visuals, and an approachable script allow children to understand weather phenomena and get introduced to discussions on climate change.

The videos are available on UCAR’s YouTube.

FableVision Games
FableVision Games, a research- and educational-game-based platform, engages students and improves their learning outcomes in STEM, social studies, literacy, and social-emotional skills. Math, history, puzzles, and more—FableVision Games has something for any child’s interest.

The games are available on the FableVision Games website—play for free through June.

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Echo Explorers
Speaking of Cyberchase, Hacker is up to his usual tricks. He trapped some bats and the CyberSquad needs your help to free them. Created in partnership with THIRTEEN/WNET and Bridge Multimedia, Echo Explorers, a born-accessible game, follows guidelines from child disability, math, and environmental science content experts. It can be tailored to each child’s unique learning needs and sensitivities through settings in sound, captions, background visuals, difficulty, and control modes. Children of all abilities learn about echolocation and coordinate mapping with their favorite characters from the PBS KIDS show.

The game is available on PBS KIDS.

Go Wild! With Ranger Rick
Who can better excite children about wildlife than the beloved raccoon Ranger Rick? The FableVision-created mobile app for National Wildlife Federation (NWF)’s Ranger Rick teaches 4-8-year-olds about animals through three activities. In “That’s Wild!,” children engage through jokes and riddles about their favorite animals. In “Mystery Animal,” a set of clues helps children guess the unknown animal. Lastly, in “Rick’s Pix,” children create a scrapbook of animal photos decorated with stickers, frames, and nature backgrounds. The app excites children through fun activities, vibrant colors, and NWF’s extensive database of information. Next time you’re at the zoo, aquarium, or backyard, learn more about the animals you see through Go Wild! With Ranger Rick.

The app is free to download with a Ranger Rick subscription.

Reach Every Reader Apps
Help your young children begin their literacy journey! FableVision-created mobile apps, Photo Play and Animal Antics, for Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)’s Reach Every Reader initiative, turn everyday routines into learning opportunities for 2-4-year-olds. In Photo Play, children decorate their own photos with stickers, emojis, and talk balloons, which helps them facilitate conversations with caregivers about the photo memories, locations, and details. In Animal Antics, children and caretakers use their imaginations to role-play as different animals. Reach Every Reader works to bridge the literacy gap by providing learning opportunities and word acquisition in low-income families.

The apps are available to download for free.

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FabMaker Studio
Spark your child's interest in engineering through FabMaker Studio, an easy-to-use, web-based program that allows children to engage in STEM and STEAM learning. From idea to reality, children build paper prototypes and final designs with this researched-based application. FabMaker Studio is part of the national Make To Learn research initiative, a unique for-profit/non-profit collaborative founded by Glen Bull, Co-Director of the Center for Technology and Teacher Education at the University of Virginia and The Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning, and Creativity. 

The online-tool provides a low-cost, accessible way to design and invent 2D and 3D projects. As children progress through the program, they transform their creativity into building their own working machines. FabMaker is perfect for creating at home, in the classroom, and summer programs. 

 If you click here for more information, you can also receive a free activity!

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"Cyberchase Fractions Quest" Now Available for Purchase!

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Blast your students’ fractions skills into Cyberspace with Cyberchase Fractions Quest, now available for classroom play! After a successful summer beta launch, FableVision is thrilled to invite educators to experience the world of PBS KIDS’ popular math series Cyberchase. Third and fourth-grade students embark on an immersive journey that integrates an interactive adventure with a research-based approach to fractions contexts. The game (complete with educator dashboard for student performance tracking) and corresponding Teacher Guide are available for purchase now on FableVision Games. 

The villain Hacker and his henchbots Buzz and Delete have captured the CyberSquad and it’s up to your students to save the day. In order to save the Motherboard from his dastardly plot, students step into the role of the hero and use their mathematical sequences and problem-solving skills to outsmart Hacker. As they explore Ecotopia, Castleblanca, Aquari-Yum, and Radopolis, students play through a series of minigames and make leaf parachutes for chameleons using their knowledge of fair shares, make tacos for underwater friends by practicing adding fractions, and more!

In collaboration with THIRTEEN and Education Development Center (EDC), FableVision created this game-based learning and assessment tool to offer a holistic view of fractions as parts of a whole and ensure fractions and future STEM learning success! Cyberchase Fractions Quest makes learning fun and challenges common teaching methods by using the latest research surrounding the best ways children learn fractions. The game follows the sequence and scope of fractions learning aligned with the Common Core Standards for Grade 3 and 4 mathematical structure. As they progress through the game, students explore different contexts of fractions including area, set, and number line. Combining research-based fractions teaching methods with an engaging narrative context, this game motivates students and increases their confidence in the classroom by improving their understanding of complicated math.

Cyberchase Fractions Quest is a result of a 2.5-year-long research project as part of the IES Department of Education SBIR program. The game also features additional professional development and game integration resources that are fully customizable to each classroom’s needs, allowing for maximum fractions learning fun and success. Formative assessment and cumulative review are also embedded in the game through the problem sets that students encounter. In the state-of-the-art teacher dashboard, educators can track students’ progress through the four CyberSites, how they performed in mini-games (out of three stars), and scores in the formal assessment pieces of the game.

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Curious to learn more about using Cyberchase Fractions Quest in this time of blended learning? Check out our recorded edWeb webinar here.

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FableVision & WNET Debut New "Born-Accessible" Cyberchase Game

Join the CyberSquad for Batty "Echo Explorers" adventure!

Hacker’s up to his usual tricks (or treats) and has created a bat-tastrophe! As you wind down from your Bat Week and Halloween celebrations, join FableVision in keeping this fall fun and fang-tastic with the launch of Echo Explorers! If you’re as batty for these winged creatures as we are, you’ll want to check out this born-accessible game, created in partnership with WNET and Bridge Multimedia and based on the popular, award-winning PBS KIDS show Cyberchase.

Digit’s cousin Brigit has a problem: the adorable bats that usually pollinate her cactus apple flowers are missing! It turns out Hacker has trapped them in caves. It’s up to the CyberSquad to rescue the bats and help Brigit’s cactus apples grow again. To free the bats, players must enter a series of dark caves and use echolocation, as well as their skills in mapping and coordinates, to locate machine parts hidden on a grid. Once they locate all the machine parts, players can smash, break, and chomp through the various cave walls and progress through the game levels. 

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Echo Explorers is versatile fun for any child. Inspired by the Cyberchase episode “Missing Bats in Sensible Flats,” this online game was created for kids of diverse learning abilities and physical, social-emotional, and cognitive differences. Echo Explorers can be tailored to each child’s unique needs and sensitivities through built-in accessibility panels available at any point in the game for easy adjustments.

Accessibility is incorporated into the art and visuals of the game, with high-contrast and color-blind friendly colors as well as easily-readable text sizes and fonts. Players also have the option of decreasing in difficulty, staying at the current level, or moving up a level of difficulty after each completed excursion. To navigate the game, keyboard, mouse, or eye-tracking technology can be used as controls. As with all PBS KIDS games, captioning is included. 

Echo Explorers is ready to play now! The game is mobile and web-friendly to be used on phones, tablets, and desktops. For more information about how to set up and integrate Echo Explorers in your classroom or home, click here. So play now on the PBS KIDS website and games app—the bats are waiting, and the CyberSquad wants all kids on board!

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