Wednesday Weekly Website- Switcherzoo

 

Switcherzoo

Review:Switcheroo Zoo is an awesome website for young learners to learn more about animals and wildlife. This is one of the “must see” sites to visit when studying animals and their habitats. Switcheroo Zoo has fun interactive games and activities such as “Make New Animals” where you can create your own animals (without the need to draw them), “Build an Online Habitat” where you choose animals and build a correct environment with vegetation and biomes, “Switch Zoo Puzzles”, “Where do I Live” where you help return rescued animals to their homes, “Sound Match” where you match the animal song to the correct animal, “Meerkat Grab-a-Snack” where you can help feed a Meerkat by catching food, and “Catch the Moment” where students take ‘pictures’ of wildlife, all the while reading interesting facts about animals. Switcheroo Zoo also has short films, sound clips, and photographs about animals for students to watch and listen to.  Young learners can become a “Switch Zoo Guide” by completing the Switch Zoo Quest for which they will play nine fun animal related games and activities to become a guide.  When they finish, they will receive a Switch Zoo certificate of merit and a guide badge. There is also an educational section that includes lesson plans for art, science, creative writing, and persuasive writing. To introduce children to online research, Switcheroo Zoo has on-site data with 142 animal profiles, a US endangered species map, and stories about unusual animal feats on a Zookeeper’s blog. In short, this site is packed full of fun, useful activities, lessons, and resources! and you can always take the learning further. For example, take the “Make new animals” activity. Kids can make all sorts of weird animal species, invent silly names for those animals, write a profile for these animals, decide what kind of foods they eat, and what enemies do they possess, what kind of environment is suitable for depending on their unique bodies etc. There is no music, a definite plus but the site contains ads so adult supervision is advisable.

Suitable for ages: 4-12