Cyberbee, the place to be!! October 20, 2008
Posted by anne marie in ELA, Websites.add a comment
I was putting together a Notebook presentation and stumbled across this really awesome interactive site to explain copyright issues for students– well actually for anyone! It’s called Copyright with Cyberbee. At the site you will find 12 students sitting in class. When you hover your mouse over the students a question pops up, click on the question and the answer appears– didn’t I say it was AWESOME!!! It presents well on the SMARTBoard- you just need to remember to set the mouse to hover before starting the lesson. ENJOY! Cyberbee.com has some other very good lessons, resources, activities that would be worth exploring. There is a 5 week interactive simulated journey allowing classes to travel the Oregon trail as part of the Westward HO! Wagon Train.
Quick directions to activate the hovering mouse. Go to your SMART tools in the task bar, select control panel, select SMART Hardware settings, make sure the pen and button option is selected and click on the picture of the mouse & keyboard. On the left side dropdown menu select right click, on the right side dropdown menu click floating mouse. So now the right click button on the tray launches the hovering mouse feature. To deactivate this feature simply touch the board and to reactivate it touch the right click button again. If you need to do a right click when in this mode you can still accomplish this by touching the SMARTBoard for 3-4 seconds. Thanks to Jim Hollis for this great tip!
More Election sites October 20, 2008
Posted by anne marie in SMART Board, history/social studies.Tags: 2008 Election, history/social studies
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My friend Sam who teachers 6th grade, shared two sites with me that would be of interest to elementary teachers discussing the 2008 Presidential Election.
The first site from PBS (which I had briefly mentioned in a previous post) is interactive and would be great to use with the SMARTBoard- The Democracy Project. There are 3 sections- don’t miss the Presidents: The Secret History link to the right it has some pretty interesting info and would be a great way to see which presidents your students can identify. The classroom resources link will bring you to a page filled with premade lesson plans and ideas.
The other site that is offering free election resources is Reading A-Z (just the links on the top of the page) some good resources about the candidates and a neat election ballot. ENJOY and thanks Sam!!
Shapes October 16, 2008
Posted by anne marie in Math.Tags: Shapes
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Came across a fun game called Crazy Closet Castles from Disney to reinforce/teach basic shapes: circle, triangle, star, rectangle. This game has very good audio support for reinforcement and works great with the SMARTBoard since players click and drag the objects/shapes to the correct closets. When all of the shapes are correctly placed the closet doors will close, followed by a some victory music. ENJOY!
Letters– Glorious Letters! October 14, 2008
Posted by anne marie in ELA, Games, SMART Board.Tags: Alphabet letters
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Here is a fun site, that works well with the SMARTBoard, to teach or review the alphabet. It displays the alphabet on the screen and students would simply touch a letter (I would give a verbal direction as to what letter I wanted identified) and another screen appears with 6 pictures. Students need to touch the pictures that start with that letter. There are some sound and animation features. ENJOY!
Photosynthesis October 13, 2008
Posted by anne marie in SMART Board, Science.Tags: photosynthesis resources, Science
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As I went for my morning walk I was once again reminded of the magical powers Mother Nature displays during the fall season, here in New England. The air is crisp and fresh, pumpkin fields are dotted in orange and perhaps the most spectacular of her “tricks” are the trees splattered in colors that rival a Picasso painting. For those of you who will be teaching about the changing leaves I thought I’d share a few sites about photosynthesis, all work well, to some degree, with the SMARTBoard
The first is a 5th grade photosynthesis webquest from the Salem School District filled with some great ideas and links.
IKnowthat.com (you will need to register for a free account). You would click on the photosynthesis link and arrive at an interactive page that when your mouse hovers over the illustrations an explanation is given. Make sure you check out the “grow plant” and “Cells Science Desk” (plants) for other relevant pages.
Photosynthesis quiz. There are 15 interactive questions on this quiz. The BBC Bitesize has a great lesson explaining the process of photosynthesis for younger students. You can also print these pages for students.
Illuminating Photosynthesis is page complete with a poem and song about photosynthesis– who knew!!!! I’m sure younger students may enjoy this!
Harcourt School: Science Close Up has a great interactive slide show, complete with audio, explaining the process of photosynthesis. Macmillian/MGraw-Hill has two sites that explain and review photosynthesis. The first is short video (5th grade) Photosynthesis and Respiration. The next is the 5th grade science e-Review. What I really like about this resource is that the slide show is followed with a Think, Talk, Write section to review and engage student responses.
Eduplace has three fun interactive games worth checking out: photosynthesis crossword puzzle , eWord Game, and eWord Find. Flash Card Review has a good section (15 flash cards) to review words and concepts of photsynthesis. Click on start study session to bring up the pre-made flash cards. The University of
Aberdeen has created a very good slide show explaining photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis: Light Reactions is a short interactive slide show from Virginia Tech.
John Kyrk has developed very good interactive animation pages about photosynthesis.
The state of Maine has a very nice Flash movie explaining why leaves change color.
I’ll end with a site Foliage-vermont.com that has a great page that shares cumulative pictures of Vermont’s Fall 2008 Foliage season. There also is a very nice video called a “Taste of Fall”. Beautiful! Would be nice to end with these resources and have students write an essay/poem about the beauty of fall. I hope all of these resources are helpful-ENJOY!
Halloween Fun October 12, 2008
Posted by anne marie in Fun, Games, SMART Board.Tags: Flash Game, Halloween
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With Halloween on the horizon I thought I would share a Halloween flash game from the Think Bank called Halloween Pairs Game. Basically it is a fun Halloween memory game that is interactive and works great on the SMARTBoard. A fun way to start or end a lesson. ENJOY!
TeqSMART October 8, 2008
Posted by anne marie in Notebook 10, SMART Board.Tags: SMART Board, SMART Notebook
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I was just checking in with my friends over at TeqSMART and was delighted to discover that the Halloween Word Bucket and the SMART Notebook lesson on the 2008 Election are both available for download– best yet, true to their word, they are both FREE!! Now that’s one heck of a Halloween treat– well that and a Super sized Snickers Bar!!!! ENJOY!
Hey guys wish I had known you were going to be in Boston I would have met you for a Fenway Frank!
Math and More! October 7, 2008
Posted by anne marie in ELA, Math, SMART Board.Tags: ELA, Math
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For all of you math teachers here is a special treat– a website I came across called Johnnie’s Math Page that is overflowing with interactive math tools (which work well on the SMARTBoard). Talk about hitting the lottery!! The interactive math section is organized by topic, not to mention there are also links to math lessons & worksheets, videos, and eduational games. AMAZING!!
Johnnie also has started a blog where he reviews websites that he finds fun and eduational called Johnnie’s Review Page. And if that’s not enough he also has a page dedicated to identifying links to interactive stories and books called Johnnies Story Page. All of which are organized in five different categories.
There are so many resources on these sites so please go explore and ENJOY! And I just have to send a BIG THANK YOU to Johnnie for making this site available– it’s absolutey wonderful!
Pumpkins October 1, 2008
Posted by anne marie in ELA, Fun, Games, Math.Tags: Pumpkins
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Happy October 1st! For me, October, and fall, equates with pumpkins. One of my favorite fall activities is visiting the pumpkin farm for a wonderful hay ride to the pumpkin patch-Love it! I know when I was in the classroom I always incorporated pumpkins into my math (estimation) and ELA lessons. So I thought I would share a few sites that relate to the pumpkins and the glorious season of fall. The first two sites, Teaching Hearts Pumpkin Unit and The Pumpkin Patch have a plethora of resources, ideas and activities using a pumpkin theme in the classroom. This 2nd site is AWESOME- a virtual pumpkin carving activitythat works super with the SMARTBoard! Students would just click and drag the thumb tack to draw/carve the pumpkin’s face- click on done and it will appear on a new screen as a Jack-o-Lantern – reallly COOOL!! Ben & Jerry’s also has a nice virtual pumpkin patch that works nice on the SMARTBoard- you clik on the pumpkin you want to carve and then drag the pieces to create a Jack-o-Lantern. Very fun! Another virtual carving site can be found at The Pumpkin Farm. Cyberhaunt has a cool virtual carving site- different from the others because you turn pages in a pattern book to pick the pattern you want and then use the virtul carving knife to create your Jack-o-Lantern. Pumpkin Jigsaw puzzle. is a site that allows students to click nad drag puzzle pieces togather to create a pumpkin.This works nicely with the SMARTBoard sine you click and drag the pieces to complete the puzzle. The last site I’ll share is a fun art activity, Pumpkin Seed Mosiac from KinderArt. I hope this information helps you with your classroom pumpkin fun- ENJOY!
