The Let’s Make A Wreath book gives students a chance to choose decorations for a wreath, then see what the completed wreath looks like lighted and hanging up. I went crazy on this one, with three choices of bow (gold, white, red), three choices of plant trimmings (pine cones, holly, poinsettias), and three novelty decorations to choose from (candy canes, gold stars, snowflakes). If you remember your math, that’s 27 possible wreaths! Bonus: ALL the art for download!

Text-To-Speech is a powerful computer option, particularly valuable for struggling readers and students with visual issues. Once and while though, you’ll hear a word pronounced incorrectly, most often if it’s a proper name or a technical term. You can correct the pronunciation of a word in Clicker 5®, IntelliTools Classroom Suite®, and My Own Bookshelf®. Detailed instructions and screenshots for all three!

The Inventions activity set uses the story of the invention of Velcro® by George de Mestral to explore the process of invention and what it takes to be a successful inventor. The anchor book, How Things Get Invented, is available at two reading levels, grades 2-3 and grades 4-5. There are also comprehension tests and a Cloze Pro® activity. The final piece of the Inventions activity set are writing activities in both Classroom Suite and Clicker 5 format, entitled Could I Be An Inventor? Bonus: Vocabulary list with definitions!

In The Animals Game, a fun science activity, students pick an animal and make the computer guess its name. It’s really a test of the student’s grasp of animal characteristics, but with a twist so that the student runs the show. Students answer questions yes or no, and the computer quickly closes in on the answer. Bonus: Clip art collection and flow chart.

Mountain Bike Race takes the reader to the top of a mountain and down the trails to the bottom on a mountain bike. The reading level is 3rd to 4th grade, but the story would interest older students as well. The reader sees the scenery from a bike rider’s viewpoint, and movies of the bike coming up the lift, the racers starting down, and the end of the race make this a vivid and real experience. Bonus: Collection of photos from the story, plus extra mountain scenes!

Feathers is a science activity explaining how birds and people use feathers. Movies let students see close-up views of birds in flight, a diving bird, and penguins walking about on the ice. Then photos of many different feathers challenge students to guess which bird they belong to. Each feather photo leads to a page with a photo and movie of the bird. Bonus: Collection of the bird and feather photos used and a set of off-computer match cards!

The interactive book Showertime! challenges the reader to find and place all the items needed to get ready to take a shower. To make the experience more interesting, the student reading and controlling the story actually goes into the shower, turns on the water, and sees and hears the water flowing, via animated movies. Bonus: Clip art collection from story!