Education Tool Known as...STARFALL

Starfall is a website in which both teachers and parents can access. More often than not, schools fund this website for their classrooms that request it ($195/year per classroom), allowing students to be able to have an access code they can use at home. If this is not the case and your child's classroom is not using Starfall, there is an at home membership fee of $35/year.  This program offers activities for students in kindergarten up to grade 3 and provides subjects like math, language arts, music, and even some seasonal activities. 

Starfall provides students the opportunity to complete activities on a given subject. For example, if a teacher wants to have an interactive math lesson with her grade one class in addition, they would go under the math category and then click addition. Here, you would press the lever to generate a problem and then once it generates an addition problem, it provides students with some answers to choose from. You can then either pick someone to pick the correct answer or even come up and choose it. These activities can also be done as individual or paired activities, where students get a device to work on completing the activity, making it more entertaining that your typical pencil and paper worksheet.

Below is another example, however this time for a kindergarten classroom. As you may be able to note, teachers found this tool extremely helpful when going through online learning during the pandemic. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i92WEYK8yac

As teachers, we want to ensure that our teaching strategies are as interactive as possible to ensure students stay engaged at all times. It is our goal to make learning fun, and have students actually want to come to school each and every day. It is also our responsibility to work alongside parents to ensure their child is truly grasping the material being taught. With that being said, using a website like Starfall, is an easy, accessible, and fun way for students to practice lessons even outside school hours - all while having fun doing so and using what an object they like best - TECHNOLOGY! 

**If students do not have access to a technological device at home, as an educator, you can discuss with your principal on allowing them to check one out for a day or two. Libraries are also a great option if parents wish to access this site when school is on break (winter break/summer break) and don't have a device for their child to use **

Brought to you by: KatherineD@NU