Wouldn’t it be great if you could make gingerbread houses without all the messy clean-up? Well, you can with the Gingerbread House activity, in either the Annie’s Books Online or the IntelliTools Classroom Suite® versions. Bonus: Gingerbread house clip art collection!

The Haunted Castle is a highly interactive Halloween adventure. The story starts with trick or treaters deciding to try out a spooky-looking castle. Once inside, they are informed that they are trapped until they locate the front door key!

For the easiest tree decorating experience of your life, try the Holiday Tree activity. I’ve created twenty-one beautiful ornaments to put on your virtual tree. It only takes four steps at most to complete a tree, and you don’t even need a step stool! Bonus: Holiday Tree clip art!

Mayan Jungle Adventure gives readers a chance to determine the outcome by the choices they make. Students get lots of reading practice with this activity, while having exciting encounters with the various perils of the jungle. The complete activity set also includes a supporting book, writing activities and a comprehension test, plus extra materials for teachers. Bonus: Photos, clip art, and printable puzzles!

Making A Pumpkin Pie carries a reader through all the steps in this enjoyable task. The dialog is much like what you would hear if you were helping Grandma with her baking, so this story can be read by students in Grades 1-3 and those in Pre-K with a little help from the read aloud option. Older students with limited reading ability will also enjoy the story. Bonus: Photo collection and pumpkin pie recipe!

Build Your Own Space Mission is a delightful and educational online game for young students. It’s not easy to present advanced science in a way that young readers can understand, but the designers of this game have more than met the challenge! Bonu: A link to even more online space games!

I’m always on the lookout for web sites that offer free educational resources, so I was delighted to find a web site that enables you to make a scale model pyramid. If you are doing a project on Egypt, you’ll love this site! It has a printable full-color template and step-by-step instructions to assemble the four sheets into a remarkably realistic small pyramid. Bonus: Two printable sheets of stone patterns to make more models!

I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use digital photos. Recently I’ve been experimenting with making them into jigsaw puzzles. The results are many different puzzle making options, including templates in IntelliTools Classroom Suite and HyperStudio 5 formats, PDF Puzzle Patterns for off computer puzzles, and a links to pages where you can make online puzzles, all using your photos.

I’ve just posted finished jigsaw puzzles in four different formats that complement three of the activity sets,Petting Farm, Little Toot, and Tide Pools. You’ll find links on this page to download all the puzzles I’ve done so far. In some cases, the puzzles and the other parts of an activity set are all in one download. In other cases, you can download just the puzzles from a unit. You’ll also find links to all seven online puzzles. After seeing all these puzzles, you’ll want to make some, too!

Visiting A Petting Farm takes students on a virtual exploration. They can go to see all the animals on the farm in whatever order they wish. They also have a chance to feed and pet the animals, and when they do, they hear the sound the animal makes. When they decide to leave, students hear all the animals sound off together to bid them goodbye. Bonus: Puzzles and Photo collection!