Free Hangman with Customisable Lists from Teachit

Teachit has just added this handy tool to their Whizzy collection. It's free to use although you have to sign up for a (free or paid) membership. You can enter your own list of words and then use it as a whole class or individual activity. The replacement of the gallows with a balloon-holding stickman takes away the gruesome element, and you can set the number of balloons he's holding to differentiate the level.

Integration:

• Use as a whole class activity by putting learners in teams. They then take turns to give a letter with a time limit (e.g. 5 seconds) to keep it well-paced. If they are correct, they get another turn. If incorrect, play moves to the next team. If teams know the word, they must spell it; they are not allowed to shout it out or play moves to the next team.
• Embed on a website or wiki as a starting or revision activity for individuals.
• As you can save word lists to your account, use these again and again for timesaving fun with a sound pedagogical aim behind them.

Switcheroo Zoo

Switcheroo Zoo is bound to be a hit with your young learners, but I'm already thinking up ways to use it with my teens. The site contains lots of activities related to animals and their habitats. It's a mine of useful information, but the fun starts in the 'Switch Zoo' where it's possible to create new animals from the composite parts of existing ones. Here's a picture of my 3-minute creation: Bengal Gizard!

• Learners can mix up their own animals and then use the animal facts to write profiles for their creations - let their imaginations soar as they practise their writing skills
• Build a habitat most suitable for the animals met on the site
• Let learners take a guided tour to find out more about the animal kingdom
• Use as part of a larger project where learners create a world using Terragen and then visit this site to populate their planets

What2Learn

This site is almost too good to be true. Not only can you access loads of great flash games created by other users, but you can custom make your own and it's FREE! Another bonus is the capacity to create accounts so you can monitor learners’ scores.



Integration:

* Create games to introduce vocabulary for a new topic
* Create games to check comprehension
* Use as a fun way to test learning
* Can be embedded into websites, blogs and VLEs for revision / reinforcement purposes
* Games can be played in teams to encourage competition (and thereby motivation in preparation)
* Use as a 'stop-and-check' activity
* Encourage learners to create their own games to test each other

Puzzlemaker

Create any of the following or download ready-made puzzles.

• Word Search
• Criss-Cross
• Double Puzzles
• Fallen Phrases
• Math Squares
• Mazes
• Letter Tiles
• Cryptograms
• Number Blocks
• Hidden Message