Using Webkinz Pets in the Classroom - Turning Toys Into Tools - Teaching With Technology

Have you ever stood in front of your class presenting an action-filled lesson only to feel like your students were more interested in their toys and life outside of school?

So often the aspects of life that excite children the most are banned or excluded from the school curriculum. What would happen to our classrooms and the engagement levels of our students if we turn toys into learning tools? When I look inside the bags my daughters carry around with them everywhere I see their digital camera, Nintendo DS, phone, Webkinz pets, and an iPod. This made me ponder this idea: what if I could harness the enthusiasm kids have for their toys and turn them into learning tools?

As I was listening to my daughters play online one day I realized that the games they were playing weren't all arcade games but many are educational! Imagine that! Kids are raving about something that is actually educational too! I knew I needed to find out more.

If you aren't familiar with Webkinz pets, they are stuffed animals that come with an access code attached. You visit the Webkinz webpage and adopt your pet which gives you a virtual, animated pet identical to your stuffed animal. You must care for the health, hunger, and happiness of your pets. Within the world of Webkinz there is an extensive economy built around KinzCash. With the Kinzcash you earn from playing games you can purchase all kinds of items along with the food that your pet requires. If you aren't familiar with the world of Webkinz, ask any eight to ten-year-old child to give you a guided tour. Children are experts and usually very excited to teach something to an adult.

So I started asking kids what they would think about participating in some Webkinz-based activities during school. The faces of children were lighting up around me (which is every educator's desire, right?) and this clearly showed me that students would be excited to learn through these activities.

I began to create activities based on the world of Webkinz. Many of the activities could be utilized during literacy work stations. Whether children are building words in Quizzy's Word World, answering questions in Quizzy's Questions, creating a play with their pets, practicing math facts and typing, graphing their pet's hunger, growing plants in their gardens, mapping their house, or keeping track of their kinzcash, they would be learning!

Adopting classroom pets is an excellent way to begin using Webkinz pets in your classroom. In many cases, you will find that almost every child in your class probably has at least one Webkinz pet of their own. I have surveyed class after class of children and it is not easy to find a child that doesn't have at least one pet until you reach some sixth grade boys. Even then, the activities are good for that age group and beyond, so you may need a couple pets with unique logins for those students to use. I've even heard of high-school classes using Quizzy's Questions and Quizzy's Word World.

Amazingly, there are many adults who find themselves addicted to the world of Webkinz. So, if this is possible, there must be activities to engage students of all ages. I have played many of the games and can't even come close to the high scores, indicating to me that there are more than just children playing! I wonder if these adults have the stuffed animal sitting on their lap while they play like my daughters often do!

How will it change your enthusiasm for teaching if your students are eagerly awaiting the start of every school day?

Kathy Cothran is an elementary media specialist committed to helping teachers turn toys into learning tools. Her vast teaching experience ranges from preschool through Master's level education classes.

For years Kathy has been a "Gadget Girl." She loves technology! Tie that to her extensive teaching background and she has been able to interest, invigorate, and inspire children and teachers to use technology in a rich, exciting manner.

Find out more about teaching with webkinz pets and sign up for hot tips via email at http://teachingwithwebkinz.com

Interested in other ways that toys can become learning tools? Visit http://turningtoysintotools.com

Tools For a Child Grieving the Loss of a Pet

As the mother of two very curious young children, I often find myself in the difficult position of answering my now 4-year old son's questions about death, heaven, the cemetery up the road, etc. It's been a real struggle for me. I want to be, most importantly, honest with him, but I don't want to scare his literal mind either. For instance, when he first asked me what the cemetery was, I was hesitant to tell a 3-year old that people get buried in the ground. At the same time, it's also quite easy to fall into the trap of underestimating children's intelligence.

I feel that I've slowly been learning that it's okay to not have an answer either. I don't really know what heaven is like or where it actually is. How do you explain what a soul or a spirit is to a child? About a week after not really being able to explain some of these things to my son, my husband got a GREAT laugh when my son informed him that "mommy really doesn't know very much." I have to admit that I laughed too. Okay, we both laughed really hard.

I try to remember back to when I was 4 and lost my mother to breast cancer. I'm told that while I was at my Grandmother's house with my Great Aunt Kate, while the rest of the family was at the funeral, that I told my Great Aunt Kate that my mommy went to heaven on a couch on wheels. I'm guessing that this came from the fact that she was laying on the couch resting at home 90% of the time, and that I saw her in the hospital on a bed on wheels. My little mind put all of these elements together and sent her to heaven. It was the resolution that I was able to come up with to comfort myself.

Often a child's first experience with death is when a pet dies. So how we help them handle that and memorialize the pet becomes really, really important. Here are a few tips to help you through this.

1. Be honest. It isn't necessarily easy, but it is more helpful to the child in the long run.

2. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one side of the paper, draw a picture of your family before you lost your pet. On the other side of the paper, draw a picture of your family after you lost your pet. It's helpful to share your picture with someone who will understand. Ask them to just listen as you and your child explain it to them.

3. It really helps to talk about feelings, instead of bottling it all up inside. Have someone who loves your child (a grandparent, sibling or friend) ask them the following questions:

a. My favorite thing to do with my pet was . . .

b. The naughtiest thing that my pet ever did was . . .

c. The funniest that my pet ever did was . . .

d. What I miss most about my pet is . . . .

e. If I could talk to my pet, I would tell them . . .

4. Attempt to explain that the spirit or soul of their pet will always be with them. This can be very comforting to a child. They might not quite understand what that means right away, but they will think about it and try to make sense of it.

Talking about their feelings is the best way to help children to work through their grief. It is important to keep gently opening the lines of communication with them, to continue try to keep them talking. In addition, there are other very effective ways of helping children to express their feelings - through art, music, dance and simply playing.

It is very important for children to be supported in adapting to their loss. Sometimes it's appropriate to focus on getting a new cat, dog, rabbit or horse right away, and sometimes it's better to wait. Have a conversation with your child to see what they would like to do. It should be a family decision with everyone's input.

Always be honest regarding the death of a pet. You do not have to discuss all the details, but the child needs to understand what's going on. A child will find out the truth in the end and may become less trusting of the parent or feel betrayed if not told the truth. The child should be able to participate in the arrangements. If your pet is to be buried, the child should be given the option to be there. Burying your pet without the child's knowledge can, again, make the entire grieving process more difficult, and make the child less trusting at a time when he really needs them.

If at all possible, prepare the child ahead of time for the death. Mementos can be very important for children, and they may want some pictures with their pet, a plaster cast of your pet's foot, etc.

Creating some kind of ritual will be very helpful, and not just to your kids. Rituals are vital to human beings. We create them around everything in our lives - births, weddings, graduations, and certainly around death. Surely, in the case of a death, ritual creates the support that the living need to grieve and say good-bye - this becomes even more important with kids. Kids don't have that button inside that says with pets we're "supposed" to be okay when they die. They just know that their pet is their friend, and part of the family - and the space they leave is palpable.

Creating loving rituals and memorials (as found on http://www.Peternity.com) to mark the death of a family pet can make all the difference in the grieving process, and it can be a tool that the child takes with them and uses to help process loss and grief their entire lives.

Colleen Mihelich
Owner, Peternity . . . honoring your pet for eternity
http://www.peternity.com
colleen@peternity.com
877-PET-PEACE

Tools For a Child Grieving the Loss of a Pet

As the mother of two very curious young children, I often find myself in the difficult position of answering my now 4-year old son's questions about death, heaven, the cemetery up the road, etc. It's been a real struggle for me. I want to be, most importantly, honest with him, but I don't want to scare his literal mind either. For instance, when he first asked me what the cemetery was, I was hesitant to tell a 3-year old that people get buried in the ground. At the same time, it's also quite easy to fall into the trap of underestimating children's intelligence.

I feel that I've slowly been learning that it's okay to not have an answer either. I don't really know what heaven is like or where it actually is. How do you explain what a soul or a spirit is to a child? About a week after not really being able to explain some of these things to my son, my husband got a GREAT laugh when my son informed him that "mommy really doesn't know very much." I have to admit that I laughed too. Okay, we both laughed really hard.

I try to remember back to when I was 4 and lost my mother to breast cancer. I'm told that while I was at my Grandmother's house with my Great Aunt Kate, while the rest of the family was at the funeral, that I told my Great Aunt Kate that my mommy went to heaven on a couch on wheels. I'm guessing that this came from the fact that she was laying on the couch resting at home 90% of the time, and that I saw her in the hospital on a bed on wheels. My little mind put all of these elements together and sent her to heaven. It was the resolution that I was able to come up with to comfort myself.

Often a child's first experience with death is when a pet dies. So how we help them handle that and memorialize the pet becomes really, really important. Here are a few tips to help you through this.

1. Be honest. It isn't necessarily easy, but it is more helpful to the child in the long run.

2. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one side of the paper, draw a picture of your family before you lost your pet. On the other side of the paper, draw a picture of your family after you lost your pet. It's helpful to share your picture with someone who will understand. Ask them to just listen as you and your child explain it to them.

3. It really helps to talk about feelings, instead of bottling it all up inside. Have someone who loves your child (a grandparent, sibling or friend) ask them the following questions:

a. My favorite thing to do with my pet was . . .

b. The naughtiest thing that my pet ever did was . . .

c. The funniest that my pet ever did was . . .

d. What I miss most about my pet is . . . .

e. If I could talk to my pet, I would tell them . . .

4. Attempt to explain that the spirit or soul of their pet will always be with them. This can be very comforting to a child. They might not quite understand what that means right away, but they will think about it and try to make sense of it.

Talking about their feelings is the best way to help children to work through their grief. It is important to keep gently opening the lines of communication with them, to continue try to keep them talking. In addition, there are other very effective ways of helping children to express their feelings - through art, music, dance and simply playing.

It is very important for children to be supported in adapting to their loss. Sometimes it's appropriate to focus on getting a new cat, dog, rabbit or horse right away, and sometimes it's better to wait. Have a conversation with your child to see what they would like to do. It should be a family decision with everyone's input.

Always be honest regarding the death of a pet. You do not have to discuss all the details, but the child needs to understand what's going on. A child will find out the truth in the end and may become less trusting of the parent or feel betrayed if not told the truth. The child should be able to participate in the arrangements. If your pet is to be buried, the child should be given the option to be there. Burying your pet without the child's knowledge can, again, make the entire grieving process more difficult, and make the child less trusting at a time when he really needs them.

If at all possible, prepare the child ahead of time for the death. Mementos can be very important for children, and they may want some pictures with their pet, a plaster cast of your pet's foot, etc.

Creating some kind of ritual will be very helpful, and not just to your kids. Rituals are vital to human beings. We create them around everything in our lives - births, weddings, graduations, and certainly around death. Surely, in the case of a death, ritual creates the support that the living need to grieve and say good-bye - this becomes even more important with kids. Kids don't have that button inside that says with pets we're "supposed" to be okay when they die. They just know that their pet is their friend, and part of the family - and the space they leave is palpable.

Creating loving rituals and memorials (as found on http://www.Peternity.com) to mark the death of a family pet can make all the difference in the grieving process, and it can be a tool that the child takes with them and uses to help process loss and grief their entire lives.

Colleen Mihelich
Owner, Peternity . . . honoring your pet for eternity
http://www.peternity.com
colleen@peternity.com
877-PET-PEACE