What Professor Garfield Can Teach Students
A Cartoon Resource is Great for Gifted Kids (and Their Teachers!)
Jul 26, 2009
The Professor Garfield activity collection at first seems geared to lower grades, but with a little exploration, enrichment teachers can find hidden gems that can enhance elementary and middle school enrichment programs. The site offers a range of left brain and right brain activities, and has a special section for teachers. The Professor Garfield site requires an hour to explore and learn, so teachers should set aside time to explore it before handing students a list of links.
Left Brained Activities on Professor Garfield
Although there are some activities that could fall into either left or right brain categories, most activities that are based on logical, analytical, or objective thinking are considered left brain activities. On Professor Garfield, the online resources for those analytical thinkers include:
- Star Sleeper, which is appropriate for elementary, is a set of activities focusing on the biological importance of sleep.
- Reading Ring (early elementary) uses Garfield comic strips to help promote sequencing and analysis through reading.
- Orson's Farm (early elementary pre-readers) offers games and activities for phonetic development and phonemic awareness.
- Scholarship Options for Kids (middle school) has career assessment elements and information about options for students after leaving high school, which is important for kids to think about before they get to high school.
- G-Cubed (upper elementary and middle school) offers a chance to compete with other students in a real-time trivia game.
- Knowledge Box (elementary and middle school) offers lessons for teachers as well as pre-made lessons for students. The core areas are all represented.
Right Brained Activities on Professor Garfield
Students use elements of left brain thinking in right brained lessons, but activities that are based on intuitive, creative or subjective thinking are considered right brain activities. On Professor Garfield, the online resources for those subjective thinkers include:
- Art Bot, (elementary and middle school) allows students to make online drawings and "sculptures".
- Comics Lab (elementary and middle school) gives students all the tools they need to make online Garfield comic strips. As a bonus, the comic creators can add their own characters.
- Music-Bot (elementary and middle school) is similar to Art-Bot, and allows plenty of interactive exploration and creation with different approaches to music.
Teacher Resources on Professor Garfield
In addition to the computer-lab activities that the site offers teachers for students, there are loads of printables and lesson plans for teachers. There is a forum set up for teachers, as well as a detailed site map and lots of ideas. The amount of material is rather ironic, considering that the mascot for the site has a reputation for laziness, but perhaps the inspiration for the amount of material is closer to Garfield's love of lasagna.
Professor Garfield Teacher's Lounge has an invitation to teachers to help improve the site. "If you teach the 2nd- 4th grade level and are interested in volunteering your class to assist with evaluating our content and giving us this feedback, we would be extremely grateful! We want Professor Garfield to provide educators with user-friendly, comprehensive, standards-based teaching tools."
The site says that the activities go up to grade 8, but for most gifted kids in junior high, the site would be more of a novelty than a learning tool. Gifted teachers might just find the gem they are looking for to help enhance a specific lesson, and since the actual number of gifted education teachers in a district is proportionally small, the online teacher's lounge could be a very useful tool.
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