Digital Bytes - 12th December, 2016 - Holiday Edition

Santa Tracker Santa Tracker is a fantastic site by Google. In advent calendar style, each day a new activity gets uncovered. Present Bounce is a neat game, but there are also opportunities to learn about traditions and translations from other countries. Younger children will enjoy Santa Selfie, a Toca Boca style game where you give Santa a haircut. Santa Tracker will work on laptops or iPads, so give it a go!

2016 Holiday Gift Guide for Awesome Young (and old) Makers @DianaLRedina has put together a great roundup of holiday gifts for all budgets on her blog Renovated Learning. She has suggestions for the robot obsessed, future engineers, crafty ones, and a helpful list of Maker-inspired books to read too. Our personal favourite: Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist.

Escape the Room - Christmas Edition This is a great problem solving challenge similar to BreakoutEDU, but in Digital form. In Christmas Fix, you have to explore a number of rooms and look for clues and items that you can collect to help you solve the mystery, fix the clock and save Christmas. This game runs on flash, so won’t work on an iPad. Game will start after the advertisement runs.

Digital Bytes - Christmas Edition - December 7th, 2015

With Christmas just around the corner, here are some fantastic gifts for those kids on your Christmas list. Also, this week is Week of Code where students are challenged to spend an hour writing code. Check out the amazing activities on Code.org or Khan Academy.

	Technology Will Save Us I really love the options available on this site because there is a mix of technology and hands on. Purchase a kit that will enable you to create a speaker out of a balloon, or take Play Dough a step further with Electric Dough. There really is something for everyone. Get the whole family involved in a hands-on project.
	Sphero, Ollie or Drone If you haven’t heard of Sphero, Ollie or mini Drone, it is time you did because this will be the most fun you have this Christmas. Combined with free Tickle app will have your kids enjoying coding and learning. What more could you ask for? Or you could go for the epitome of cool and get the BB8 sphero. If you wanted a cheaper option or something for younger kids, then check out the Ozobot.
	Low Tech, but Tech Thinking There are a ton of great products out there that you and your kids can use to help support logical thinking and reasoning. Check out Klutz Lego chain reaction, code masters board game, snap circuits jr, Cool circuits, and Qwirkle to name just a few.
	Christmas Games A number of free games which challenge you to explore and solve a problem. Problem 1 Problem 2 Problem 3 Problem 4 They are free and fun for an individual or small group of kids.
	Week of Code This week is the week of Code where everyone is challenged to spend an hour writing code. Try out the Star Wars challenge where kids have to try to use code to move BB-8 and R2-D2 through obstacles or take Steve and Alex on an adventure in Minecraft. Also take a look at the activities on Khan Academy.