It's Catalog Season

Hello again, from Teacher's Brunch HQ in freezing fog-stricken Auburn Hills, MI.

(As Mike, our tech guy said, if smoke and foggy makes smoggy, do freezing and foggy equal froggy?)

Teachers across the country will soon find in their mailboxes our Spring Teacher's Discovery catalogs.

We've seen them, and they look great--full of ideas and awesome stuff to make teachers' days a little easier.

If you don't think you're going to get a catalog from us, and want to make sure you get one, head over to this link for English, Social Studies, and Science teachers, and over here for our Foreign Language friends.

When it does arrive in your mailbox, let us know what you think.

Pitch the Rock! Rocks and Minerals Baseball Takes the Field

Hello, everyone, from Teacher's Brunch HQ in suddenly-summer Auburn Hills, MI. We've all got sports fever around here now that our Teacher's Discovery Fantasy Football league is up and running (thanks, Adrian Peterson), and our hometown Detroit Tigers are in the pennant race.

Coincidentally, we've just released Rocks and Minerals Baseball, the latest installment in our series of games made for interactive whiteboards. Science teachers across the country will find the game in the catalog they should be receiving within the next day or two.



Give the game a try-out.

You can download a sample here for PC users, and Justin Long-ophiles can get their Mac fix here.



And to put you in the mood to root for your team. . . .

Correct Common English Errors With Our Newest Game

Stephanie has just put the finishing touches on this game that is sure to be a hit with teachers and students.

Using your interactive whiteboard, review 100 of the most frequently misspelled and misused words in the English language.




Of course, this game works just as well in a computer lab, or on your stand-alone classroom computer, as a great review for standardized tests.

Make sure you allot a lot of time for this, because it's going to be worth its weight in gold! (I think we got all of them write right!)

Here are the links to the sample games, so you can try it before you bye buy it.

Here for PC users.

Here for Mac users.

Yet Another D & D Post

Well, followers of this blog know someone around here at Teacher's Brunch HQ in rainy Auburn Hills, MI has a "Dungeons & Dragons" jonesing, so it makes sense that when we saw this article, Everything I Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons, it had to be posted here.

Hopefully, game clubs will spring up across American schools.

Geographic Bee Winner

This story details the recent victory of Eric Yang, 13, in the National Geographic Bee.

He won on a nail-biting triple-overtime sudden death question. Here it is:

Timis County shares its name with a tributary of the Danube and is located in the western part of which European country?

Eric got it right, making what he called "an educated guess."

So congratulations to Eric, and the folks who helped him get that education.

Teacher's Brunch and Teacher's Discovery have a nice little collection of geography games that might help your students be the next Bee winner.

Here is a link to them: right here, folks!

Our Favorite Things We've Made! (part two)

Ryan has this to say about his favorite game, "Early Explorers and Colonies Challenge":

"Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Cabeza de Vaca and Tom our buyer, what do all of these people have in common? It's not that Tom was around to work on their ships and give us great sketches of what life was like back in those times. They are all stars in Early Explorers and Colonies Challenge. This Challenge series game reaches all the way back to the land bridge, works its way through the many great explorers that reached the Americas and ends with the rise of Jamestown and the Pilgrims. Which explorer was the first to set foot in Florida and not have it bitten off by a gator? Your students will jump over a cow when they find out what the explorer's name Cabeza de Vaca really means. What could Hernando de Soto have done to have his body buried at the bottom of the Mississippi River? Let's just say he didn't default on some shady loans. I bet the seven bishops of Mérida are still laughing about the wild goose chase they started of the seven cities of gold. I'm sure Coronado isn't laughing. These are just some of the people you will encounter in Early Explorers and Colonies Challenge."



Sounds like he had fun making it.

And if we have fun, your students will, too.



as an added bonus, here's a picture of Ryan himself, "having fun" at our Teacher's Discovery Halloween party.



We're glad Ryan's on the team.

We're also glad we're not pumpkins.

Our Favorite Things We've Made! (part one)

Here is the first part in an ongoing series, highlighting the teacher stuff we've made that we think came out the coolest!

Stephanie writes the following about her favorite game, "Forensics Challenge:"


"I love the dramatic images that are in the Forensics Challenge. Its suspenseful while waiting to see the next image. I really like the questions about real crimes. They help me remember some of the major crimes from the past. The concepts in this game help me see what it would be like to solve an actual crime. "



Like all of our Challenge games, Stephanie made this to work perfectly on an interactive whiteboard, or projected just using a regular wall. It would also be fun to use in a computer lab or on a stand alone machine.



You can see some more preview pictures, and buy the game, here.

Here's a link to download a PC-friendly trial.

And if you're Mac-ish, here you go.

Tell us what you think. Did Steph do a good job?

Civil Rights Challenge Game

This just arrived, perfect for your interactive whiteboard, or just a stand alone computer, or even as a computer lab activity.

Civil Rights Challenge is a game that will review all the important names, faces, and events in the American Civil Rights movement.



PC users can download a sample here. Those of you who are Mac-inclined, the sample is here.


This game is the perfect companion for our Civil Rights Movement PowerPoint presentation.

So, use the one to teach, the other to review, and have happy (and better-informed) students!


A sample of the PowerPoint is here for the PC-people, and here for you wacky Mac'ers.

As always, let us know what you think and how you use them in your classroom.

Interactive Whiteboards: The Future of Education, or Boondoggle?

For the last 2 years or so, we here at Teacher's Brunch have been making stuff teachers can use on their interactive whiteboards. SMARTboards, Promethean, our very own Vboards--just like Kleenex is to tissue, all interactive whiteboards basically work the same and run our games perfectly.


But we were talking today about the stories we've been hearing from some schools. Stories of grants being written, boards being purchased, boards being tucked away into storage rooms adjacent to media centers all across the country. We started wondering about interactive whiteboards, and how--IF!?--they are getting used the way we think they can be used.



We hope our customers are taking advantage of their technology. If not, they can drop us a line, and we're happy to help.