The Suitcase Series CD is the result of a development partnership between Fio Quinn and Learning Magic, Inc. Developed in IntelliTools Classroom Suite V3.2, The Suitcase Series provides basic instruction in the areas of early learning, math and language arts at a pre-school through second grade level. Content is also appropriate for older special needs students.

The CD includes over one hundred and thirty finished activities as well as off computer support materials. Included in the off computer materials are nearly two hundred high quality photographs that match vocabulary words in the language arts section, as well as math manipulative materials.  A copy of IntelliTools Classroom Suite v3.2 or later is required to run the Suitcase Series CD's activities.  There is no longer a player available from Cambuim/IntelliTools that will play these activities.

Language Arts

Alphabet:

In the language arts area, students begin their studies by using the Alphabet activity. The activity presents a picture of a standard typewriter keyboard. The student is then asked to click on a letter.

Under every letter there are three or four vocabulary words stored which will be displayed one at a time in random order. As an example, the letter “C” when clicked will present either the word “car” or “cat” or “cow” or “clown”.

If the student clicks on the letter “C”, the letter “C” will first be displayed in both upper and lower case. The letter’s name and the sound it makes are then read out to the student.

The letters will then disappear and if the word “clown” was the word randomly chosen, the word “clown” would be displayed and read aloud. Then a picture of a clown would be displayed along with a sound effect relating to the clown. Additionally, the letter “c” is highlighted in the word “clown” by being presented in the color red to reinforce the concept that “clown” is a “c” word.

Note:
There are approximately one hundred words included under the different keys. Each of the letters and corresponding words when displayed and read aloud are then accompanied by both intellimation and appropriate sound effects.

The student can then click on the replay (microphone) button to play the word again, or they can click on the next page arrow to go back to the typewriter keyboard to choose another word.

Once students have become familiar with the words and letters in the Alphabet activity they have the opportunity to work through a variety of different word based activities. The first of which is called “Find The Initial Letter”. In this activity students are presented with a picture and asked to choose the letter which the word starts with. If the student is not sure of the word, they can click on the “listen to the word” button and have the word read aloud. They then choose a letter by clicking on the keyboard and that letter will be put in the box next to the picture. If the letter is incorrect they will receive immediate feedback via a red “X” next to the letter they have chosen and the sound of that letter will be read aloud.

The student then can choose another letter. When the correct letter is clicked a gold star will appear next to the letter. The word will also be displayed below and read aloud. Again the letter “C” will be highlighted in red.

Note:
There are four sets of “Find The Initial Letter” activities each with an average of twenty six words in them. These activities allow students to reacquaint themselves with every word they encountered in the original Alphabet activity and to help reinforce the first letter and sound of each word.

In the next four sets of activities students are asked on each page to find the word that has been read aloud. A picture associated with the word is also displayed. The child can also click on the “listen to the word” button to have the word read aloud again. The student is then presented with three word choices. If the student clicks on either of the incorrect words, they will receive a sound effect of “uh oh” to indicate that that is an incorrect choice. Once they click on the correct word, a new page will be displayed that includes intellimation and/or appropriate sound effects for that word. The picture is then displayed in the box above, and the word is also displayed and read aloud again.

In this set of three activities students are asked to look at a picture and a part of a word and type in the missing letter. When the student clicks on a letter on the keyboard, that letter will then be inserted in the empty space. The letter’s sound is read aloud. In the letter is incorrect, a red “X” will appear next to the inserted letter. Then two seconds later the red “X” and incorrect letter will disappear.

The student then has the opportunity to try again. When the correct letter is inserted its sound will be read aloud. A yellow star will appear next to it for a second and then disappear and the completed word will be displayed next to the picture for visual comparison

In the final four activity sets students are asked to unscramble the letters of a word. The four sets of activities are broken up into sets of words with “3 letters”, “4 letters”, “5 letters” and “six letters or more”.

On each page the student is presented with a picture associated with the word that needs to be unscrambled. If they are not sure of the word they can click on the “listen to the word” button to have it read aloud. If they are not sure how to spell the word they can click on the help button and a textbox will appear in the upper center of the screen (see the screenshot above on the right). The word will be spelled out letter by letter for them. The word and textbox will then disappear in two seconds. Students are then asked to unscramble the letters by clicking on the letters in the appropriate order. Once the letters are inserted, they can click on the “read all” button to hear the word they have created. They can of course click on the “listen to the word” button again for comparison. They can also click on the check work button to see if their answer is correct.

This rich combination of language arts activities provides an environment for creating phonetic and phonemic awareness, spelling, vocabulary building and much more. We also have found that students are drawn to these activities and are highly attentive. We believe that this is due to both the solid instruction and the rich visual and auditory feedback students receive through their interactions with these activities.

As mentioned earlier we are also providing a folder of high quality photographs to assist in the language arts area. Each word will have two corresponding photographs in the folder. The photos can be printed out or used in any way deemed appropriate to give students varying images or representations of the word. We have found that providing students with similar but yet slightly different photographs leads to better generalization and reapplication of their learning. (i.e. cow pictures)

The math section contains a wide variety of activities which allow children to gain knowledge in the areas of numeral recognition, number matching (i.e. written and numeric), counting, sequencing, adding, subtracting, and comparing numbers

The screenshots and descriptions below are representative of a number of different formats and activities in the math section of the CD. In total there are nearly fifty different math activities, with each activity containing approximately twenty five problems.

The two screenshots above from the Find The Number activity sets show how students are able to read and equate different numerical values with the words that represent the same value. When the student clicks on a number or a word that is incorrect, they hear the number or word read aloud and a sound effect that indicates that the answer is not the right choice. Then they have the ability to choose again. When they have picked the correct number, the number or word is read aloud and they receive positive feedback. Then the student can proceed to another question by clicking on the next page arrow.

The two screenshots above are from one of the eight Color by Number activities in the math collection. Students first click on one of the colors in the color palette below. Each color has a number associated with it. When the click occurs a paint can is displayed with the color of the paint chosen. The student then drags the paint can onto the picture and clicks. When the area is clicked, it is filled in with the color chosen by the student. Note: in the case of the chicken, the tail feather and the grass are both number “7” or green. Likewise the body of the chicken should be painted yellow or “1”.

The screenshots below are from one of the activities in the Connect the Dots collection. In these activities, students are asked to click on each number on the drawing in sequence, (i.e. click on number one, click on number two). As each number is clicked a line is drawn from the prior number to the current number. By identifying and clicking on the number in sequence, the drawing is completed. When the last number in the activity is clicked, the object that has been drawn will be colored in. Then an appropriate sound effect and animation will occur. In this case, the sound of a car starting up is heard and then the car drives off the page.

In the How Many Did You Count collection of activities students watch different items travel across the page. They are instructed in the directions to count how many times the image goes across the page. In each case sound effects accompany the animation on the page (i.e. motorcycles, ships, balloons, eagles). When the last object has gone across the page a green circle moves onto the center of the page. The student then has the ability to enter the number of objects they counted. Students receive immediate feedback if they counted the number of objects correctly.

In the next set of screenshots please see one of the many formats available in the math section for addition and subtraction exercises. Different activities have children adding and subtracting numbers and manipulatives from 1-5, l-10, 1-15, 1-20, and 11-20. In the first screenshot from the Adding One to Ten Animated activity children can click on the “help” button if they are not sure of the answer. The problem will be displayed in a manner whereby each value is displayed on the page via different colored dots. As each dot appears on the page the activity counts the total number of dots. When the final dot is displayed it will remain on the screen for two seconds and then all of the dots will disappear.

Likewise in the subtraction activity shown below students can click on the help button and see an animation where objects are removed from the original value and dropped into a grocery bag. Once the animation has been visible for two seconds it will disappear and the student is asked to put the correct answer into the box. In both cases the student receives immediate feedback via a gold star or a red “X” as to whether their answer is correct or not.

The last example from the math collection is from the Matching Numbers sets. In the first screenshot you will see that the student is asked to match the dot value of the domino on the engine’s smoke stack with the numerical value of one of the dominos in the car. When the correct car is chosen it is automatically coupled up to the engine.

Then the student is presented with a second car in which they are to match up the dot value on the domino in the first car to the numerical value of a domino in the second car.

When the correct second car is coupled up to the train, the train will start to chug and will drive off the screen to the left. The student then has the opportunity to move to another matching problem.

A second set of activities changes the dots to words (i.e. one, six, eight). Students then are asked to couple up the cars where the numeric values match the word.

Please also note that we will be providing pictures of both the engines and all the cars in a PDF, whereby you can cut off and use the engine and cars as hand held manipulatives.

This section of the CD has over seventy finished activities ranging from basic coloring, to matching shapes and sizes, to puzzling, to a wide variety of pattern making and completion activities. Additionally cause & effect, sorting and make your own scenes activities (where you can either create a scene by moving objects or create your own scene via the insertion of different objects onto varying backgrounds) provide students with a wide range of opportunities to explore and learn.

The screenshots below represent a few of the activities in this section.

Coloring:
There are fifteen different coloring activities in this area. Students have the opportunity to click on any color they want on the paint palette and then drag the paint can onto the picture and paint each section as they like.

Puzzles:
There are sixteen different puzzles included in the collection. The puzzles require the students to click on the correct piece of the puzzle below to insert into the puzzle backboard to create a correct picture. If the student clicks an incorrect piece for the piece that is indicated as needed next they will receive a sound effect that indicates that that is not the correct piece. When the puzzle is completed the student will receive a reward via an appropriate animation and sound effect. (i.e. the airplane flies across the page and does a breathtaking “aerial loop” while accompanied by an appropriate sound effect.

Patterns:
There are eighteen different pattern activities within the pre-learning section. The pattern activities range from having students match the pattern on the page via two or three object choices at the bottom of the page, to activities where they have to insert one or two objects onto the page to continue the existing pattern on the page.

Shapes and Sizes:
There are nine different activities in this area. Students are asked in a number of different ways within the activities to match the sizes and shapes (and also colors in some cases) of different objects. In the first screenshot below students are asked to match the shape of different objects. In the second screenshot students are asked to match the size of the different pictures of an elephant.

In the six Move It activities students have the choice of placing three different objects onto a background to create their own scene. First the background scene is presented with three dots positioned in different places in the scene. The first of the three objects that can be positioned is highlighted at the bottom of the page. The student then clicks on one of the three dots to move that object to that position. Students can also change their minds by clicking on the eraser button and repositioning the object. The student then follows the same procedure for the second and third object. In the screenshot below students can move the cup of coffee, the plant or the cat, to either the window sill, onto the chair or onto the table. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here. The scene is totally up the student’s imagination or understanding.

In the ten Make Your Scene activities students first click on a background button on a toolbar. Dependent upon the background scene chosen a second toolbar of appropriate objects for that scene is displayed at the bottom of the page. The student can then choose any or all of the objects they want in their scene. By clicking on the picture of the object in the toolbar the object will be automatically inserted into the scene. Students have the option of erasing the last object they placed on the picture or erasing all of the objects and starting the scene again if they so choose.

In the screenshots below you will see sample pages from the In Or Out and On or Under activities. In the In or Out activity students are asked to click on the In or Out button to answer the sentence correctly. The student has the ability to self check their work and also correct their answer if they so chose. Note: that the picture on the television screen is actually an intellimation with an appropriate sound effect.

In the On or Under activity students are asked to place the object either on or under an object on the screen. The screen has two dots which the student can click on. One is on top and one is under. When the student clicks either of the dots, the object will be moved to that position (i.e. a rug under or on top of the table). If the student places the object in a correct position, the word “under” or “on” will be displayed along with a gold star. If the student places the object in an incorrect position, the word “under” or “on” will be displayed with a red “X”.

The final two screenshots are from the Cause & Effect and Sorting Items activities. In the Cause & Effect activity, students simply click on the page and something happens. On the page below, the sound of a rocket launching is accompanied by an intellimation of the rocket blasting off into space. Other pages have similar but varied animation and sound effects to draw and hold the student’s attention.

In the Sorting Items activity students are asked to sort items that belong to a specific group. In the screenshot a student was asked to click on items that below to the group furniture.

In the Sorting Items activity students can self check their work at any point. In this case the student would see that the chair, lamp, sofa, bed and table belong to the group ‘furniture”. But the guitar (marked by the red “X”) is an incorrect response.

Other groups include animals, foods, clothes and toys.