Category: Kits - FOR EDUCATORS OF CATTARAUGUS AND ALLEGANY COUNTIES.

WHAT’S IN THE WAREHOUSE? RESOURCES FOR YOU - TABLETOP LIGHT PANELS - SPHERO INDI

4/30/2024

We have been busy adding more kits onto the system as more and more teachers are aware of all the great resources we have on our shelves in the warehouse. This month I’ll spotlight a couple that may be new to our readers.

Tabletop Light Panels are now on the system and are built due to teacher demand! At a recent PreK CLC, several teachers requested this resource, and we are so happy to fulfill that wish. In addition, we purchased light tray manipulatives that students can use on the light panel. Perfect for scientific demonstrations and detailed observations, or math and ELA activities, this ultra-slim LED light panel is easy to set up on any tabletop. Simply power it on…select low, medium or high light…then put manipulatives and other objects on the surface for a clear view. Included in the set are numbers, letters, bugs, dominoes, buttons, gems, color chips, and pattern blocks.

Sphero Indi is one of our newest additions to the robotics section and with the kit, your teachers can rev up STEAM learning. Rev up! Get it? YES!

The car-shaped Indi learning robot is designed to introduce early learners (Pre-K and up) to the fundamentals of computational thinking, STEAM, and computer science principles in a fun and exciting way. Teaching with Indi encourages open-ended, imaginative play-based learning with real-life scenarios as learners build custom mazes and solve puzzles. Indi offers an unplugged programming experience with an onboard color sensor and interactive color-coded tiles, or students can kick their skills into high gear with simplified block coding options in the free Sphero Edu Jr app.

Take a look at our warehouse and all of our new resources. Are we missing anything you might want your students to utilize in the classroom? Let me know...I love to shop!

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

What's in the warehouse: Slumberkins, Adventure ship, Mail carrier kit

1/31/2024

We have been busy adding more kits onto the system as more and more teachers are aware of all the great resources we have on our shelves in the warehouse. This month I’ll spotlight a few that may be new to our readers.

Slumberkins empowers children to be caring, confident, and resilient. Founded by a special education teacher and a family therapist, Slumberkins was created to bring effective early emotional learning tools into as many homes and schools as possible. We have purchased several of the book sets that focus on resilience, confidence, and caring.

Imaginative play takes centerstage with our Adventure Ship. It stirs the imagination for hours of play alone or with a group of friends! Encourage your students to become authors and use it as a device for storytelling with the emphasis on adventure. It is the perfect size for little hands and easy to set up. The Adventure Ship can be combined with blocks and other toys for multiple ways to play.

Either for use as a Play-Based Learning kit or for use in learning about our Community Helpers, we have a Mail Carrier Kit. It includes a realistic, weatherproof mailbox with a front chute and a rear opening for removing the mail. The mail bag set includes 22 plastic preprinted 4" x 6" postcards with an easy to write on surface. There is also a nylon mail bag with a hook and loop shoulder strap.

Take a look at our warehouse and all of our new resources. Are we missing anything you might want your students to utilize in the classroom? Let me know...I love to shop!

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

Math Intervention Kits!!!

1/20/2022

As we continue to navigate the new normal of Covid and “learning loss” (or as I heard it rephrased, “unfinished learning”) we’ve worked with other coordinators and teachers to develop and purchase some math intervention kits. As students continue to struggle with memorizing math facts and then using those facts in practice, it’s obvious that something isn’t transferring.

Over the summer, math specialist Graham Fletcher joined our Summer Math Institute and shared his knowledge of Building Fact Fluency Through Mathematical Storytelling, Harnessing the Power of the Purposeful Task (3-Act Tasks), and Demystifying the Fraction Rules We Teach. His sessions were well received, and he promoted new math kits he was working on.

Those kits are now on our warehouse shelves. Building Fact Fluency: A Toolkit for Addition and Subtraction and then another for Multiplication and Division are available to book for our teachers, instructional coaches, specialists, and interventionalists.

The Addition and Subtraction kit helps students learn their math facts by developing deep, conceptual understanding and procedural fluency at the same time. This comprehensive, research-based toolkit provides everything a teacher needs to help students develop number sense on the way to fluency—from cards, games, and videos to online resources, a facilitator’s guide, and hundreds of highly-engaging activities and tasks.

Research-based and standards-aligned, the Multiplication and Division toolkit invites students to think strategically about mathematics through multiple, rich, real-world contexts. These accessible contexts allow students to see how number facts connect to a wide variety of mathematical situations, explore the properties of the operations, and build a foundation of strategies they can draw from efficiently and with confidence.

LET’S BOOK SOME KITS!!!! Go to our resources page here to look at the new kits, older kits, and streaming resources. Keep checking back as we add more items to assist teachers in their craft and students in their learning.

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

more new kits!!!

4/19/2021

Continuing our push to create more relevant and timely resources, we are putting many more kits on the booking system. The kits we created in January have been flying out of the warehouse and we are doing our best to keep up with the demand. We have several areas of need on which we are focusing, including play-based learning, social emotional learning, movement and balance, and fairy tales.

For play-based learning, we’ve added Magna-Tiles (teaching spatial relationships, math, logic, and problem-solving through creative building), foam “wooden” lumber pieces, multi-cultural block play family sets, and friends with diverse abilities posable play sets.

Social Emotional Learning kits are working their way onto our warehouse shelves. We’ve started by adding Grab and Write SEL Prompts for Grades K-2, and 3-5. Great for daily writing or group conversations, the cards cover topics such as friendship & teamwork, self-control and more.

For movement and balance, River Stones are now available. They are designed to improve coordination and balance. Jumping or stepping from stone to stone develops a child's confidence in their ability to judge distances and are a great sensory and gross motor activity. We also now have scarves and ribbons movement sets.

Creating a bridge between STEM and ELA, Fairy Tales Problem Solving Kits are available to book, including Rapunzel, The Gingerbread Man, and Little Red Riding Hood. In addition, we have the Happy Architect Fairy Tales kit, wherein creative play and storytelling are all rolled into a beautiful set of wooden toys.

LET’S BOOK SOME KITS!!!! Go to our resources page here to look at the new kits, older kits, and streaming resources. Keep checking back as we add more items to assist teachers in their craft and students in their learning.

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

New Play-based learning Kits!!!

1/26/2021

We’ve been busy here at Learning Resources the past few months. New items are on the warehouse shelves and are available now on our resources page. We’ve been focused primarily on our younger learners, those in Pre-K, K and 1st grade. Additionally, play-based learning has also been an emphasis.

New additions include foam block builders, with realistic pretend bricks, cinder blocks, and rock wall builders. LEGO DUPLO kits are also now available. We have Wild Animals sets, Large Farm kits, and Build Me Emotions kits. This latter kit allows children to explore emotions and physical characteristics while developing social skills. As children collaborate on a range of character-building experiences, they recognize feelings and identify similarities and differences. Building cards provide support and inspiration so children can continue to build and rebuild characters again and again.

Continuing the theme of play-based learning, we’ve added soft dinosaur sets, pretend and play doctor sets, community workers sets, and North American wildlife sets. And then to round out our new kits are those that focus on small motor skills. Double-sided dexterity boards offer six dexterity functions: button, zipper, snap, buckle, Velcro®, and bow tying. The lace board is an excellent prop in teaching children how to tie their shoes. We also have stack and sort boards that feature colorful counting discs to sort onto stationary pegs. Double-sided, wooden squares have screened numbers 0 through 9 and a corresponding dot count on the opposite side. Rearrangeable, loose parts allow for multiple matching, counting, addition and subtraction activities on or off the board.

Sounds like fun, eh? Go to our resources page here to look at the new kits, older kits, and streaming resources. Keep checking back as we add more items to assist teachers in their craft and students in their learning.

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

WHAT’S IN THE WAREHOUSE? RESOURCES FOR YOU! – Part 5

1/27/2020

This month’s spotlight as we dig a little deeper into the resources we have available to our component school districts in our warehouse is…..Guitaleles!

Guita---what?

In an effort to make sure that all of our educators in the CABOCES region can find something of use in our warehouses, we’ve been attempting to add more music and art kits as the music and art standards are being revamped. So....bring on the guitaleles!

We now have 10 Yamaha GL1 Guitaleles in our warehouse. Half guitar, half ukulele…100% fun. This is a unique mini 6-string nylon guitar that is sized like a baritone ukulele (17” scale) and plays like a standard tune guitar. The guitalele’s tuning is pitched up to “A” (or up a 4th) at A/D/G/C/E/A.

This is a student pleaser. It is small enough for Pre-K students to play. The nylon strings make it easy on the fingers and the neck size is great for smaller handed players as well as regular sized hands needing a break from the thicker necks of standard-sized guitars.

Take a look at our warehouse and give our guitaleles a try!

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

Media Kits Revamp!

10/30/2019

Like many people, here at Learning Resources we are working on shedding excess weight! Shelves and shelves of outdated media kits have been removed from the system and we are looking leaner and meaner.

But any successful weight loss effort needs a support system. And our administrators, teachers, and students are just that. For the past few months, we reached out to CLC’s, forums, Admin teams, and curriculum specialists to give us ideas for new kits that align to standards and/or are high interest.

If you have any ideas for kits that can be used in your classrooms, please don’t hesitate to reach out and share your ideas. We’ve already added some kits that may be new to you: Sphero Minis, Sphero Bolts, and BobXL

BobXL is a training dummy. Some of our schools are working with their students on self-defense and reached out to us for help. Self-defense is important to learn, but these lessons can fade without practice. Now students can train to develop the muscle memory they may need if a self-defense situation occurs.

In addition, we’ve also added Sphero Minis and Sphero Bolts.

Both are app-enabled robots that provide endless opportunities to be creative and have fun while learning

If you have any questions or want to find out more, please reach out! We have a lot of work to do to create more and more kits that will help teachers and students reach their educational goals.

By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

Heart and Heart Condition Model Kit

1/31/2019

Contained within this kit are books, guides that study the circulatory system and normal heart conditions, and the following models:

a two-part large heart conditions model with thickened walls and valves
four segments of artery showing degrees of blockage
one small two-part normal heart.

For more information on this kit or others available to you through media, contact Alexandra Freer at (716) 376-8354 or [email protected].

Health Kit: Our Lungs, Heart, and Health

1/31/2019

Since February is American Heart Month, why not learn about this important organ and other key organs that help us keep living and breathing via a science kit? In the kit Health Kit: Our Lungs, Heart, and Health, students will identify parts and functions of the respiratory and circulatory systems. They will examine ways to keep these two very important systems working efficiently through nutrition, exercise, and healthy habits. Special emphasis will be placed on the negative effects of tobacco. For more information on this kit or others available to you through STEM, contact Clay Nolan at (716) 376-8354 or [email protected].

It’s For the Birds!

11/2/2016

Are you looking for resources and don’t know where to turn? Maybe you have some idea of what you are looking for and don’t have the time to cull through the myriad options available. At the CABOCES Learning Resources center in Allegany, we will have a training in January for the teachers in our two county area, highlighting all that our Staff Specialists here can do for you and your students.

Learning Resources has recently had an increase in the amount of resources being used by our component schools, but there are still so many things being underutilized. So as part of this training, the Staff Specialists went through each branch of Learning Resources and how they can assist with curriculum and content, utilization of online and digital support, as well as providing tangible resources to use in the physical classroom. The teachers who have gone through the training before have been amazed at the hundreds of thousands of resources available and how each department can either assist with or provide instruction on the various aspects of digital resources and technology, STEM, Library services, and distance learning.

Both STEM and the Digital Media program provide kits that can be used in the classroom to aid instruction and provide hands-on activities. Online resources accompany those kits, as well as accessing the SNAP system to find additional support. The Distance Learning branch has many components, including Moodle and Mahara, credit recovery, virtual field trips, collaborative classrooms, online learning, and Adobe Connect. Additionally, our Library Resources offers support to all 22 school libraries in Cattaraugus and Allegany counties, implementation of the inter-library loan system, and provides online usage of Britannica and World Book.

If you are not utilizing any of these resources, only using some of them, or need to know more, come join us on January 12 at our Learning Resources center in Allegany, NY.

By: Alexandra L. Freer, CA BOCES