Windsor Central School - Palmer Elementary: Teacher and Staff

Software Programs Available To The Students
Click on a title to learn more about the software.

Ten Tricky Tiles – Sunburst Software
Grade Levels: K-3
In each activity, students use digits 0 through 9 exactly once to correctly complete a series of randomly generated number sentences. Learning excitement grows as students are challenged to choose a number arrangement which satisfies all the number sentences. Sometimes the obvious answer is not the best fit! An on-screen calculator and a Hint button are available to test answers. Positive reinforcement is the name of the game with students receiving incremental corrections if problem sets are submitted incorrectly. After the third incorrect submittal, the correct answer is provided in a fun, colorful presentation. Based on activities by Marcy Cook. Students develop their arithmetic and logic skills with three levels of activities that involve: solving sets of number sentences, improve operation skill, develop number sense and deductive reasoning.

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Clock Faces – Micrograms
Clock and Calendar Skills Honed by a Trusty Band of Animated Clocks Including:

Students have lots of fun with 4 main activities: telling time, setting the time, answering questions by using calendars, and matching times. Also, word problems are provided to exercise both clock and calendar skills. While students work, they enjoy the friendly company and encouragement of amusing clocks that love to celebrate student successes. Directions for all program activities are available in both English and Spanish. Student and class records, summary screens, and printouts carefully track children's progress.

Penny Panda’s Sticker Store – Micrograms Software
Penny Panda provides lots of practice in counting money. Four main activities help children with counting a given amount, comparing amounts, presenting money to match a specific sum, and determining change accurately.

Flexible program options allow the teacher to select which coins and bills to include for practice. Have children remain at a specified level or have the program change levels automatically based on student performance.

With each correct answer, children earn money to spend at Penny Panda's Sticker Store. Visit Penny's store after each activity. Buy stickers when you have enough money. Penny has many popular stickers. Collect birds, cars, endangered animals, national flags, flowers, spiders, butterflies, insects, music and dance, dinosaurs, and sports stickers. Save up or trade for the most expensive stickers. Try to collect complete sets.

Fractions With Professor Von Strudel – Micrograms Software
Welcome to Professor Von Strudel’s math lab. The professor’s classes on fractions are appropriate for a wide range of students in grades two through six. Starting with a very basic introduction to fractions and building on what is learned, students master a wide range of math curriculum goals having to do with fractions. From beginning equivalents to multiplying and dividing with mixed numerals, the professor offers carefully guided practice. Most activities contain one or more tutorial help components in which the professor clearly explains the concept or method utilized in the selected activity.

Super Science Show – Micrograms Software
Friendly Bob Treebark hosts The Super Science Show where one or two contestants have fun with third, fourth, and fifth grade science. Players can play against friends or challenge a variety of computer contestants. Both knowledge and logic are exercised.

Bob runs a well-organized show. His simple directions make it easy for students to play. Bob's humorous comments and mannerisms help to establish a game show atmosphere in which excitement and friendly competition prevail.

Bob asks 300, 400, and 500 point questions which correspond generally to third, fourth, and fifth grade science knowledge. Though an occasional question is of the trivia type, most questions pertain directly to fundamentals of the science curriculum. The following nine topics are game categories: Plants, Animals, The Human Body, Health, Weather, The Earth, Matter, Energy, and The Universe.

Easy Book Deluxe – Sunburst Software
Grade Levels: 3-8
Designed to support the needs of a wide range of writers, this book-publishing tool provides students with a creative environment to write, design, and illustrate stories and reports, and print their work in book formats. Flexible, student-friendly tools inspire students, as they:

Write! Simplified text features help students stay focused on their story! An array of built-in writing tools includes a spellchecker, a thesaurus, and editing and formatting tools. There is even text-to-speech so students hear their stories read aloud.

Draw! Each page of the book can be filled with free hand, computer-generated, or imported illustrations. Students easily create graphics with a variety of drawing tools, or use the colorful stamps and beautiful backgrounds to create vivid images.

Print! Print in color or black and white from any inkjet or laser printer. Print any book in four sizes: mini, half-page, full-page, even poster book size!

Advanced Features! Students choose page layout options and use ‘real life' book features, like copyright, dedication, and title page. They can create chapters, include sounds, decorate book covers, and design their own stamps and backgrounds.

Kidspiration – Inspiration Software
Grade Levels: K-5
Created for K-5 learners, Kidspiration provides an easy way to apply the proven principles of visual learning. Students build graphic organizers by combining pictures, text and spoken words to represent thoughts and information.

Improve K-5 standards-based skills:

The Letterbugs Get Ready To Read – Sunburst Software
Grade Levels: K-2
Your early learners build a bug collection by completing phonics and spelling activities. The more bugs they collect, the more they have established the phonemic awareness skills they need for reading!

With the help of a friendly entomologist who guides them through every step of learning, students select a specific phonemic skill and explore it in a series of 3 engaging activities. First, students identify the target sound in visual contexts. They are rewarded with bugs for their collections by correctly identifying the phoneme in pictures of common words. In the second activity, students get more bugs by spelling words using the identified phoneme. In the third activity, students begin to read words based on the skill they are exploring.

Students select phonics skills by starting with consonant letter-sound associations, and moving through short vowel sounds, clusters, and digraphs. Students complete the program using long vowel sounds and abstract vowel patterns – with all the bugs to prove it!

In this colorful learning environment filled with bugs galore, students stay motivated and focused on developing phonics skills with a high level of reward and positive reinforcement. On-screen learning is supported by appropriate textual, visual, and auditory prompts. A complete teacher's guide provides you with reinforcement materials and classroom integration ideas.

Memory Fun – Sunburst Software
Grade Levels: K-3
Welcome to Tiny's attic where students build memory, matching, counting, time and money skills! Cleaning up the attic is the order of the day! As students click on objects in the attic, items to be matched magically appear from Tiny's trunk.

After students complete each match, the objects disappear into the trunk! Children choose from a variety of categories to work on specific skills, such as:

Practice counting with tallies and numbers
Tell time with analog and digital clocks
Find sets of coins for a given value
Develop visual discrimination skill with shapes, animals and clothing
Develop auditory discrimination skill with musical instruments and their sounds

Numbers Undercover - Sunburst Software
Grade Levels: K-3
Children solve the case of the missing numbers as they practice four math skills -- telling time, measuring and estimating, counting, and working with money. Children use problem-solving skills to gather clues, narrow down suspects, and solve the mystery.

Telling Time: Students read analog and digital clocks, translate between digital and analog time representations, and determine elapsed time.
Using Measurement: Students estimate length and area measurements using non-standard units, and explore length and volume.
Counting and Number Sense: Students put numbers in order, skip count, count backward, and put missing numbers in a sequence.
Money Skills: Students identify coins, find values of sets of coins, find sets of coins equal to a given value, and make change.

As students complete each activity, they collect a clue to eliminate a suspect in the case. This intriguing context keeps students returning to the program to solve their saved mystery or start anew with a fresh array of suspects and number situations. Three levels of difficulty ensure that students are challenged.

Numbers Recovered – Sunburst Software
Grade Levels: K-3
Based on the award-winning bestseller Numbers Undercover, this program introduces students to new number concepts of place value, graphing, inequality, and number representations.

With Max, the Numbers Detective, your students engage in four skills-building activities where they are awarded clues to unlock a door leading to missing numbers, helping Max solve the case. With three levels of play for each activity, students have the opportunity to work from basic concepts to more complex situations.

An onscreen Counter Tool, similar to the manipulatives used in classrooms in available for computational support. Student strengthen their number sense with these Number Recovered activities:

Recognize, compare, and sort equivalent number representations in Sorting Sleuths.
Identify inequalities and order relationships using "greater than," "less than," and "equal to" symbols in Comparison Capers.
Understand place value, and use standard and expanded notation in Puzzling Place Values.
Organize, represent and interpret data with pictographs and bar graphs, and solve word problems based on data in Graphing Gumshoes.

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Spanish 1a With Phonics – Help Me 2 Learn Software
Research has proven that Phonics is the most effective way to learn English. This unique bi-lingual program applies Phonics to beginning Spanish and English in one program. Students will be able to see and hear how both Spanish and English words are formed. It covers the alphabet, numbers, common, words and short phrases. The Super Star data tracking/reporting and motivational system rewards and motivates the student to complete the games and songs, in addition to tracking each student's progress.

Word Problem Square Off – Gamco Software
This Learning Game motivates students to solve a wide variety of word problems, thanks to a special mystery phrase game. Students eagerly solve word problems to earn points, which they use to select or buy letters. Point values are randomly generated to give all students an equal chance to win.

Mystery Phrases are divided into several cross-curricular categories, including language arts and social studies.

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I SPY School Days – Scholastic
Nine unique play areas are filled with more than 1600 object-and-word searches in hundreds of clever picture riddles, puzzles, and games.
I SPY School Days challenges kids to use their brains!

I Spy Treasure Hunt – Scholastic
This rollicking collection of three separate treasure hunts will hold your child spellbound with puzzles, riddles, maps, and music. Winner of more than thirty awards, including three Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Awards, the best-selling I SPY CD-ROM series continues to thrill and challenge children who love puzzles, clues, and surprise endings. Brain-building games enhance problem-solving skills, sharpen critical thinking, and enrich comprehension of language arts.

Math for the Real World – Knowledge Adventure
Build Word Problem-Solving Skills in Everyday Situations. Grades 4 and Up Math for the Read World introduces students to everyday math skills such as telling time and counting money. They learn key concepts such as logic fractions and decimals. Word problems and interactive activities help students apply real-world critical- thinking skills to daily situations. -- CURRICULUM SKILLS -- * Solve problems involving graphs charts and maps. * Add subtract multiply and divide fractions decimals and percents. * Understand time measurement and weights. * Practice budgeting -- SPECIAL FEATURES -- * Over 4000 word problems in nine key subject areas. * Multiple levels of difficulty. * Reference library with detailed explanations for everyday problems.

Chick Chicka Boom Boom – Davidson
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, the award-winning "rhyming alphabet book," has made learning letters and building early reading skills fun for a whole generation! Now, music, video and animation bring this beloved classic to life in an interactive adventure today's kids will love even more. And with the real-life "Multimedia Players" on-screen to lend guidance and giggles, every moment of your child's play-and-learn experience is sure to be a boom-boom blast! Features narration by the legendary Ray Charles. Inspired by the best-selling children's alphabet book, written by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault and illustrated by Lois Ehlert.

Sammy’s Science House – Edmark
There are five fun activities in Sammy's Science house with multiple levels to adjust with children as they learn.

The Sorting Station is full of wonderful pictures to sort into the right cans. Level one asks children to sort in to two groups, for example, "Animals with Fins" and "Animals Without Fins." The friendly cans are always helpful and praise children when they are right. Upper levels increase the number of groups and difficulty.
Building in the Workshop is so much fun. Children can choose blueprint to build and then paint their creations or a busy bee will direct them.
Exploring at Acorn Pond helps kids understand animals and their habitats, weather and seasons. A wise owl will ask questions, "Who cannot fly?" or kids can discover nature on their own.
While making movies kids learn about sequencing and can watch their own creations in Sammy's movie theater. There are two levels to challenge kids.
The Weather Machine is a great way for kids to experiment with weather. Children combine temperature, rain and wind to create different days. They can create on their own or a funny bear will ask them questions.

Trudy’s Time & Place House – Edmark
Trudy makes exploring time and geography fun. Trudy's house has five fun places to visit and explore. Kids can play in two modes designed to enhance creativity and learning. In Explore and Discover Mode children play freely and learn by encountering and experimenting. Question and Answer mode challenges children to apply what they have learned.

The time twins, Analog Ann and Digital Dan are ready to play. Children can change time on one clock and see the same time on the other clock. Dan and Ann will also ask children to set matching times on their twins in full, half and quarter hours.
Kids learn directions, North, South, East and West, left, right and forward and also how to follow direction when they play with Joe Crow. Joe needs help directing ants to find jellybeans.
The Calendar Clock lets kids play with time by changing months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Changes are depicted in an animated movie that run forward and backwards.
Children learn about map symbols playing in the sandbox. Kids place symbols on a map and watch rivers, lakes, roads and cities grow. Combining symbols lets kids create railroad tunnels, bridges and towns.
Exploring the earth has never been so much fun. Kids blastoff with Astro-mouse to discover continents, oceans and famous landmarks. The earth is represented by a 3 dimensional globe kids can rotate and maps. Children learn the relationship between the earth, a globe and world maps. Kids can take pictures of their favorite place to print and color.

Word Munchers Deluxe – The Learning Company
Kids absolutely love to play the muncher games and this CD covers six topics areas for five grade levels. While kids play they work on classification, grammar, vocabulary and phonics for grades 1-5. Adjustable levels of play and content make it great for kids of different ages and abilities.

Kids or parents can choose the subject matter and level to work on specific areas. Children work on parts of speech including nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, prepositions and interjections. Vocabulary drills cover synonyms, antonyms and rhyming words. Phonics activities cover beginning and ending sounds, vowel sounds including vowel blends.

This is a fast paced arcade style game. Kids run around on a 3D grid and munch the correct answers. Sounds easy, but the troggles are always there to add some excitement. Kids must find the correct answers, move the muncher and munch all the correct answer while avoiding the troggles. Players rack up points on their way to the Word Muncher Hall of Fame. Kids are also rewarded with silly stories.

Zoombinis™ Island Odyssey
Rescue Zoombini Isle! Save the Zerbles! Excitement like this could only be found in the magical land of the Zoombinis. Sail off on a learning adventure to restore Zoombini Isle from the dastardly Bloats' destruction. Along the way, you’ll explore fascinating science topics like astronomy, mechanics, ecology, genetics, and more!

Lay the foundation for math and science success by building key logic and science process skills.
Discover concepts in astronomy, mechanics, cryptography, and life sciences.
Delve into the food chain, ecology, and genetics.
Put your wits to the test in seven intriguing interactive logic puzzles.
Progress through three levels of difficulty for ongoing challenge.
Zoombinis Island Odyssey is the third title in the award-winning Zoombinis series!

Zoombinis Logical Journey™
An Epic Adventure of Math and Logic. Travel to a remarkable new world and treat your brain to an outlandishly fun and challenging adventure. Diabolical Bloats have seized Zoombini Isle, and it will take a clever mind to help the Zoombinis navigate their way to safety. Standing between you and your destination are twelve perilous puzzles, with four levels of difficulty each. But beware, this is no ordinary challenge. Zoombinis’ captivating gameplay features math without numbers. Solving Zoombinis puzzles uses the process of mathematical thinking. This process includes organizing information, reasoning with evidence, and testing systematically. Dive into the exciting and wacky world of the Zoombinis and develop information-age logic skills used in writing computer programs, organizing spreadsheet data, and searching for information on computer networks.

NEW! Printable activities. Sharpen your skills even when you’re away from the computer. .
12 perilous puzzles with 4 levels of difficulty each.
Play again and again! With puzzle reformulation, it’s a new game each adventure!
Helpful puzzle clues and a handy practice mode build confidence every step of the way.
Logical Journey supports the math standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Zoombinis Mountain Rescue™
As smart as they are, the Zoombinis just can’t seem to stay out of trouble! Caught in a severe storm, a small band of Zoombinis seeks shelter in a mountain cave. Now the Zoombinis find themselves trapped in a hazardous tunnel where mysterious creatures lurk. The Zoombinis’ escape rests squarely on your shoulders, or more accurately, on your brain. With nine perplexing puzzles and three levels of difficulty, each perilous challenge will test your mathematical thinking skills-which include organizing information, reasoning with evidence, and testing systematically. Develop the information-age logic skills used in writing computer programs, organizing data, working with spreadsheets, and more. Featuring a great new 3D look, advanced concepts like networks and binary numbers and even more wacky characters and encounters, Zoombinis Mountain Rescue is an outrageous educational adventure that is as fun (and addictive) as it is educational!

Brand new adventure! Meet colorful new characters and face exciting new challenges in the sequel to the award-winning Zoombinis Logical Journey™!
Reinforce skills covered in Zoombinis and introduce additional advanced concepts.
New! Additional concepts! Challenge yourself with NEW concepts like binary numbers, networks, permutations, and more. Plus, reinforce the skills covered in Zoombinis Logical Journey!
Explore 9 perilous puzzles with 3 levels of difficulty each! Face fresh challenges each time you play!
Enjoy the captivating gameplay experience. With the Zoombinis’ unique puzzles, it feels like you’re playing a game, as opposed to learning a lesson.
Helpful puzzle clues and a handy practice mode build confidence every step of the way.
Mountain Rescue supports the math standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Grammar for the Real World – Knowledge Adventure
Students work their way up the ladder at a Hollywood studio to learn how mastering real-world grammar and writing skills can lead to real-life success. Students improve their writing, grammar, and spelling skills and learn how mastering these skills is essential to everyday life. Students learn to apply the elements of effective writing—proper grammar, correct punctuation, standard spelling, and well-constructed sentences. This realistic context demonstrates how strong language skills can lead to success in life.

Curriculum Skills

Recognize parts of speech
Master verb tenses and usage
Learn proper punctuation and capitalization
Identify common errors in word usage
Recognize sentence fragments and run-on sentences
Understand subject-verb agreement
Build vocabulary and usage skills
Use plurals and possessives correctly

Bailey’s Book House – Edmark
Bailey and his friends encourage young children to build important literacy skills while developing a love for reading. In seven activities, kids explore the sounds and meanings of letters, words, sentences, rhymes and stories.

These include: preposition activities; alphabet activities; phonetic activities; rhyming words; simple story writing; simple greetings cards. Activities are point and click, children select their answers or preferences using a single mouse click.

Where In The USA Is Carmen Sandiego – Kids Click Software
Carmen and her evil henchmen are at it again. It is up to you to search the United States to find and arrest them.

Carmen and her international crime ring are stealing treasures in all 50 states. They have nabbed Lincoln's Log Cabin, swiped Seattle's Space Needle and grabbed the OK Corral. The ACME detective agency needs you to catch the culprits and return the stolen goods.

Kids can expand their knowledge of cities, states and regions as they pan through beautifully painted landscapes filled with regional music, spoken clues and over 200 animated characters. develop deductive reasoning skills and practice map reading. There are 3,000 clues, spectacular photos, music from all 50 states and spoken description of all states by local residents.

The electronic reference tool is a rich database with over 50 video clips, maps and flags. Essays highlight each state's geography, economy, historic events, landmarks and famous people. The key-word search makes it great for researching school projects.

This is a multi-level mystery game that kids love to play and they don't even realize they are learning geography and sharpening deductive reasoning and map reading skills.

Reader Rabbit Learn to Read With Phonics – The Learning Company
Build confident early readers with Reader Rabbit and friends!
Reader Rabbit's Learn to Read with Phonics was designed by educators, curriculum specialists, and reading experts to help beginning readers build skills and confidence in reading. It combines three activity components-word recognition, phonics, and progressively challenging stories-making it far more complete and balanced than any one approach. Children learn to recognize and sound out words, build vocabulary, improve memory and concentration, and more.Your students will develop a love for reading that will lay the foundation for lifelong learning!

Features
• Two paths to learning: a systematic journey through 26 letter lands or a dynamic four-module "word factory"
• Over 100 carefully sequenced lessons in phonics,word recognition, and reading comprehension
• Exposure to a wide variety of engaging texts written at a child's reading level
• 26 storybooks, with record and playback, give students control of the reading experience
• Practice mode and storybook mode

Print progress reports, study word lists, and student certificates

Learning Opportunities
• Systematically and explicitly develops phonemic awareness and sight vocabulary
• Builds letter-sound relationships and recognition of letter patterns and word sounds
• Increases student's vocabulary
• Supports a wide range of ability levels

Millie’s Math House
Kids, ages 3-7, develop a love of math when they play in Millie's Math House. Through 7 fun filled activities that feel like play children learn about numbers, counting, addition, subtraction, patterns, problem solving, size, geometric shapes and much more.

Kids count critters, build mouse houses and create crazy-looking bugs while learning early math concepts. Kids learn to identify and compare shapes and sizes, create and complete patterns, learn numbers to 30 and practice addition and subtraction.

Harley the Horse wants some cookies. At the Cookie Factory kids decorate cookies with 0 to 20 jellybeans to make Harley a tasty treat. Kids can make cookies as they choose or play a fun game. Harley will tell players how many jellybeans he wants on his cookies.
Dorothy Duck is asking What's My Number? Players must place the same number of objects on the stage as Dorothy has on hers. Kids explore simple addition and subtraction with Dorothy. Problems are illustrated with objects making understanding easy.
Little, Middle and Big need shoes. There are large, small and medium shoes. Kids have tons of fun choosing just the right shoes for these three crazy characters.
The Number Machine is lots of fun. Kids click on a number and watch as crazy critters pop-up and are counted out loud. Children can count 9 worms, 23 penguins and more. Kids can also play a fun game where they are asked to find a number.
Build-A-Bug is a zany game that kids go crazy over. Children choose bug parts, eyes, antennae, ears, feet, tails and spots and then a number to build their bug. In mode two kids are challenged to follow written and verbal directions to build just the right bug.

Players will also explore shapes and discover patterns as they build mouse houses and play with Bing and Bong.

Accelerated Reader (AR)
This is the world’s most popular reading management software. Accelerated Reader provides teachers with an easy and effective way to monitor all forms of guided reading practice. And with Accelerated Reader Renaissance Place, teachers get even more detailed, objective data to target instruction and ensure success for every student, regardless of level, from emergent reader to college prep! Accelerated Reader Quiz List

STAR Reading
Helps you determine the reading level of each student, measure individual and class growth, and forecast results on standardized tests. Students can complete the computer-adaptive assessment in less than 10 minutes, and you get accurate, reliable, norm-referenced scores immediately.

STAR Math
Helps you determine the math level of each student, measure individual and class growth, and forecast results on standardized tests. Students can complete the computer-adaptive assessment in less than 12 minutes, and you get accurate, reliable, norm-referenced scores immediately.

Microsoft Word
Learn the tools and features to more easily create, share, and read great-looking documents.

Microsoft PowerPoint
Learn to create and present presentations. Use enhanced multimedia capabilities to deliver presentations with more impact.

Internet -WWW
Students are able to access the Internet for research using the the sites listed on our district website. Click on this Research Online link to see the list.