What it is: Oh. My. Word. I have just stumbled on gold my friends, gold! Fraboom is an online children’s museum packed full of games, interactive books, creativity, learning and-are you ready for this-LIVE online teachers! On Fraboom students can learn about US presidents while they play games, watch Fraboom TV cartoons to learn vocabulary, read interactive books that encourage creativity and join live online classes with real flesh and blood teachers! Fraboom TV has a variety of cartoons that will teach students content area vocabulary words. Each cartoon on Fabroom TV lists all associated vocabulary words so teachers can quickly find a video that will support learning. Cartoons can be searched by keyword or category. The very best part of Fraboom (in my humble opinion) is the live online teachers. Drawing classes start every hour on the hour. Students can drop into a class and learn how to draw cartoons. There is a new challenge every day so content is always fresh! Students can interact with teachers through the chat feature; students type a message and the teacher responds to them by name. Fraboom cartoon characters introduce the activity for the day and the teachers interact with the cartoon on the screen- very fun! Students learn how to draw step by step guided by the teacher and follow along on their own whiteboard space. When students are finished, they can share their pictures with the class. After drawing, the class completes a mad lib together. The teacher explains a part of speech and requests words for that part of speech from the class. Students can contribute words to the story by typing them into the chat area. Throughout the class, the teacher shares submitted pictures with the whole class. I attended two live classes and was really impressed with the teachers in both sessions. They are upbeat, engaging and fun. Fraboom was created for students six to twelve years old. Content is being added regularly and fresh challenges in the live classes every day. Plenty to keep kids creating and learning!
