Physics Games

I'm delivering an IWB in Science day in London tomorrow and I have been looking around for any new science websites that I might have missed. So I was really pleased to have stumbled upon Physics Games.net this morning.

Physics Games.net provides nearly 50 different flash-based games, all collected onto the one site. A few of these games, like Magic Pen and Fantastic Contraption, I have seen before on other sites, but it's nice to have one place to bookmark to get them all in the same place. There are quite a few games here I hadn't seen before. Physics teachers should definitely add this site to their favourites.

Most of the games are puzzle-type games that draw on aspect of physics - many would be useful to illustrate forces or gravity.

The site also provides embed codes for the different games so you can embed them into your own school website or VLE. There are some fun games there, and even if you don't end up using them in a lesson, there are some fiendishly addictive puzzle games there. Check it out today.

Electricity and Circuits Ks2

Here are some handy links for teaching Primary Electricity on an IWB

This is something I haven't seen before. Looks quite fun

The Blobz Guide to Circuits

I used to use a great piece of free software called Crocodile Elementary, from Crocodile Clips. It seemed to have gone but I think I've found it again. It's been rebranded as Yenka Basic Circuits, and you can download it from the Yenka website here.

From the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/6_7/electricity.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/activities/conductors.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/activities/changing_circuits.shtml

Other Links

Make an Electric Circuit Online

BBC Learning Zone - Electricity Videos

PhET Circuit Builder

Cleo Circuit World

For a quick 10 minute preview, that explains some aspects of circuits. Go to Furry Elephant, and choose series or parallel circuits. It literally only allows you 10 minutes though.

Link to other Links Pages

E=TC3 6G Changing Circuits Page

E=TC3 4f Circuits and Conductors Page

TopicBox - Electricity

Magic Pen Game

No, not related to my earlier post about the Smart Magic Pen, but more related to my post about Phun the other week.

Thanks to Science Punk for linking to another fun little Real Physics application called Magic Pen.

Magic Pen is like Phun in that you use a crayon to draw objects that then behave on the screen as if they were real. Balls roll, oblongs topple down under gravity etc. This time, there's an actual objective. You need to get the little ball to the flag. You might need to just roll a ball into it to make it move, or you could build a more complex solution.

It's very neat, and would be great on an IWB as a lesson starter activity.

Play Magic Pen here: http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/