Social Studies Skills
Prentice Hall offers 20 interactive Social Studies Skills lessons. These lessons offer multiple skill levels for learning, practicing and applying skills. Each leasson would present well on the SMARTBoard. ENJOY!
KOL, Jr. Stories Online
AOL Kids has a very nice selection of online stories that present very well on the SB. Some of the nice features of this site include the audio support, the pause feature and the fact that each word is highlighted as the story is read. To view all of the selections offered be sureto click on the five different categories on the left of the page under “What’s In a Story”. Within these categories are several engaging stories. I recently introduced this site to some of our SpEd classrooms and it was an immediate hit! I developed a couple of lessons demonstrating how to incorporate communication systems (BM symbols) to extend student learning when listening to the stories. It was so rewarding to see how students were able to not only listen to the stories, but participate by sharing their skills/knowledge to answer comprehension questions. ENJOY!
Notebook Lessons
I have been creating Notebook Lesson for many of the elementary teachers and thought I would share a couple of the lessons I created for the second grade teachers- ENJOY!
continents This lesson was created to review the continents and oceans of the world- complete with accompanying worksheets and homework assignment!
GeographyMissBean This lesson was created to expose 2nd grade students to some famous landmarks of the world- complete with accompanying worksheets.
Subtraction This is a math Notebook lesson I created to help reinforce subtraction with grouping and non-grouping.
1 CommentNotebook File- Using Animoto
I was asked to present a PD around using the amazing Animoto website for creating videos and so I created a quick “How To” Guide using the SMART Notebook software and thought I’d share it here in case others could use it. Just as an FYI-the original file had actual Animoto videos embedded on a page as a demonstration, but I needed to remove those to upload the file. Below is a quick Animoto I created during the PD of my beautiful animals!! ENJOY! Here is the link to the Notebook Lesson- Animoto
Using ArtPad
Last week I collaborated with a third grade teacher on an ELA visualization lesson using ArtPad.com (click here to see my ArtPad post). After completing our Visualization Notebook Lesson we asked the students to read a passage from Charlotte’s Web, paint a mental picture of the barn that was described in the passage and then using either the ArtPad application or crayons and paper, they were then instructed to replicate their mental image. The students quickly learned how to use and navigate the ArtPad site. Below are their “masterpieces” in a Rock You slide show. ENJOY!
Update- I received a comment from Katie asking howI saved the artwork to put it in a slideshow so I thought I would add it to the original post in case others might have the same question. Unfortunately the “Save and Send” option in ArtPad did not work very well for us (not sure why?) so this is what we did: We took a Screen Shot of the finished artwork once it was hanging in the gallery, brought it into Paint, used the crop feature in Paint to cut out just the picture hanging in the gallery>clicked on Edit>Cut>File>New (you can click no if asked if you want to save changes to untitled)>Paste> and voila you will have your painitng hanging in the gallery! Use the “Save As” function from the File option and from the drop down menu select the file format you want (JPeg, BitMap, etc). Then you head over to an online slideshow program like Rock You or PhotoPeach and use those images to create the slideshow. Hope this helps!
Jeopardy Template
Cerese Godfrey shared a wonderful SMART Notebook Jeopardy template in her Diigo account. It is from the Fairbanks Technology Blog- here is the link. Since it is created in a Notebook file you are able to use images, videos and even have the students show their work for the answers! It also includes a page for a score board and has a link to the Jeopardy theme song. This morning I quickly created a geography game to reinforce the continents and oceans. Oh yeah– this template also comes with great directions! ENJOY!
Time For Time
Time for Time is a great site for any teacher teaching telling time. If you are using a SMARTBoard they have a wonderful interactive clock to use that allows you to demonstrate the current time along with being able to adjust the time. There are games and quizes and even have a talking clock! The About Time Section also offers some interesting facts about time. ENJOY!
Biological Animations
John L. Gianinni from The Biology Department at St. Olaf’s College has a great website that offers several free animated/interactive resources. I shared this site with one of our biology teachers and she was quite pleased, saying this site would be helpful to supplement and help demonstrate specific concepts. The Biological Animations offers several free short animations of biological processes. The Movies section offers eleven movies related to biological processes and the Exlporable Animal Cell section allows you to click on an area of a cell to learn more. ENJOY!
Factoring with Mr. Yang
Factoring with Mr. Yang and Mosley the Alien is a site created by a math teacher to help support middle school Algebra students who are studying factroing expressions and equations. It is designed to be used as a supplement to the curriculum. This site could be used as an introduction (presents well on the SMARTBoard) or as a review for students. There are six specific sections/comics to explain factoring. ENJOY!
Artpad.com
If you ever wanted to create a masterpiece and see it hung in an art gallery then Artpad.com is the site for you!! This site is so cool in that it allows you to create your own artwork and then hang it in a virtual art gallery. The application is very intuitive in that it is very similar to other paint programs with text, bucket and brush tools and gives you the ability to select colors, size and opacity. In addition it allows you to replay how the painting was created, to undo a stroke, etc. The neat feature is that when completed it allows you to select a gallery to hang your masterpiece! There also is an option to save your artwork and email it to others. When you save it, the site generates a URL for your artwork. I recently used this application in a classroom using a SMARTBoard with much success! Students were completing a unit on animal habitats and their assignment was to draw the different habitats. They were put into groups of four and given the “blank canvas”. The results were wonderful! Once each painting was completed and hanging in a gallery we used the screen capture tool to create our own Art Show using the SMART Notebook software. Below is my masterpiece hanging in the gallery!! ENJOY!
