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. . . .

Promethean Loves Us, Too!

Hot on the heels of last week's announcement that we were recognized by SMART, we can now announce that interactive whiteboard company Promethean has also officially labeled us the bee's knees.


We've made a link on each of the subject websites so you can find individual products.

Here's Social Studies: here.

And English: here.

Of course, Science: here.

And finally, Foreign Language: ici, aquí, and hier.

It's What's Inside That Counts: Anatomy Challenge Has Arrived!

Our newest game from our Challenge series is for Science teachers everywhere: Anatomy Challenge.

Like all our Challenge games, we made this to work perfectly with your interactive whiteboard, but there's other ways to use the game, too. In a lab, projected on the wall, on your classroom computer-whatever machine you use, the game is always fun, and students are always learning!





Here's the link to a sample for PC users: right here!

Folks more inclined toward Macs can find a sample to download over here: linky link!

French Cultural Trivia Games--Two Varieties to Satisfy Any Appetite!

Hello, French Teachers!

Complimenting our two varieties of games to help you teach vocabulary, we've just released two games to help you teach French culture.



The first game, French Cultural Trivia: Easy, covers the basics of life in France, along with some French history, geography, and basic French questions. We think it's perfect for a first- or second-year class.



If you're interested, you can download a PC users version using this link: here.

Teachers using Macs can download the sample French Cultural Trivia: Easy game here.

If you'd like to buy it, the French Cultural Trivia Game: Easy can be ordered from our parent site here.


Of course, we wouldn't want to stop with Easy, so we made a more challenging version of it, too.

French Cultural Trivia: Difficult uses the same format as the easy version, so it's a great continuation for more advanced, returning students.

It includes different questions about France and its people, food, geography, and life.



A PC trial for the difficult version is here.

Mac-ers amongst us will find a sample here.

As with all of our Teacher's Brunch games, you'll find these really shine in classrooms with interactive whiteboards. Students can get out of their seats and race to "buzz-in" before the other team, then consult with their own team to make sure their choice from the four options is correct.

No interactive whiteboard? Try it with just a projector. Or, use the games in computer lab work.

However you use them, they're fun and informative. A great way to spend some of that technology stimulus money, made and developed completely in the U.S.A.!

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?

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.