Money As You Grow - 20 Things Kids Need to Know to Live Financially Smart Lives

Money As You Grow is an initiative of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability and has been selected by the American Library Association as one of its Great Websites for Kids!  The site breaks down financial literacy activities into five different age ranges ( 3-5, 6-10, 11-13, 14-18, and 18+).  Activities are available to help students understand money, finance, spending, protection, online safety, savings, credit, investing, and more.  Each area has multiple activities to help students become better stewards of their money.  With Money As You Grow, Teachers can download a free poster as well that helps to share the steps related to money at each age range.  See a sample of the poster below.  The steps that you see are also the topics that have activities associated with them.

The Science of Baseball

As a native of Louisville where the Louisville Slugger bat is crafted, baseball has always been a part of my past time.  From watching the St. Louis Cardinals to trading baseball cards I have always been a fan of the game.  From Exploratorium comes The Science of Baseball which allows users to test their fastball reaction time (requires Flash) or see what makes a home run (requires Shockwave).  There are also articles and other activities of interest related to baseball and science.  For history teachers there is also information about women in the game and other historical aspects of baseball.  For math teachers they provide statistical information that can be used to understand mathematical concepts.  If looking to make a lesson more relevant during the spring time period or bring a baseball lesson into the classroom on Opening Day, check out The Science of Baseball.

Gmail Search Gets an Upgrade

The image above is the winning doodle in the Google 4 Doodle Contest and thought I would share it here while also sharing some search changes in Google Gmail.  Google announced today that users will be able to see relevant emails, calendar events, Google Drive files and more (in the future) as they type a search query in their Google Gmail account.  The search feature will only be rolled out to English users at first and will be happening during the coming week.  Some users have already been using the feature as they opted in to the opportunity and from those users the trial period appeared to be a success.

The search feature works by providing users a drop down from the search bar with icons and information of different results from the predictive text of the search query.  You can see in the image below what it looks like.  Over time unification across various Google products appears to be the long term goal.

Top Charts in Google Trends

On the Google Official Blog today they announced the ability to track the most searched people, places, and things on a monthly basis.  Google does this at the end of every year with the Zeitgeist Reviews, which I wrote about in December, but are now making it available more often.  With Google Trends Charts users will be able to see what is hot right now, while also exploring the history and geography of a topic as it evolves.  Charts are available in over 40 different categories.  As a social studies teacher, the Google Trend Charts would provide relevant information about historical events and would provide interesting discussions in sociology and psychology classes.

Google Cultural Institute

The Google Cultural Institute is a must bookmark for any social studies teacher looking for primary sources of images and text from our history as Google helps to preserve and promote culture online.  The site provides a visually rich and interactive experience for telling stories in new ways.  Teachers and students can discover exhibits by expert curators, find artifacts, view photographs, read original manuscripts, watch videos, and more.

Users can explore various channels and collections while also researching different time decades and projects that the institute is currently working on.  In the future, users will be able to create their own exhibitions, therefore collecting the history of their home town.  To learn more about The Google Cultural Institute, see the video below.