Talking SMARTBoards & Much More! » ELA

e-Learning for kids

anne marie — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:39:27 +0000

A friend of mine, Marie, sent me a link to e-Learning for Kids and I’m glad she did! It is filled with wonderful free resources…

“Established in late 2004, e-Learning for Kids is a global, nonprofit foundation dedicated to fun and free learning on the Internet for children ages 5 – 12. We offer free, best-in-class courseware in math, science, reading and keyboarding; and we’re building a community for parents and educators to share innovations and insights in childhood education.”

It is available in 4 languages and is very user and SMARTBoard friendly, not to mention the programs are motivating, interactive, fun, educational and some ven have voice input-YEAH!! There are so many great lessons, games, etc.- too many to mention, so head on over and do soem exploring, guaranteed you won’t be disappointed!

Interesting Ways to Use….

anne marie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:26:58 +0000

Tom Barrett is the creative mind behind the Interesting Ways to Use Series. If you have not yet checked out his blog and specifically this series I highly recommend that you do! He has created presentations for Intersting Ways to…. “Use Audio, Use a Wiki, Use Wordle, etc. The really neat thing about these presenations (created in Google Docs) is that it is a collaborative effort by teachers from all around the world. You can even add your ideas to any of his presentations which is what I just did on his 13 Interesting Ways to Use WallWisher in your Clasroom. I wrote about WallWisher this summer (here is that link). The versatility and ease of use of this site is what makes it so wonderful for teachers and students, not to mention it is free! We have used it in our district for students to create an Honor Wall for Veterans in their lives and to post book reviews. So I posted those two ideas Tom’s presentation to share with others. I believe I was slide/idea #9 & 10!! So a big Thank you to Tom Barrett for having the vision and inspiring others to collaborate and learn from one another. ENJOY!

ABC Adventure

anne marie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:03:34 +0000

Harcourt Publishing has an ABC Adventure interactive game that teaches/reinforces the letters of the alphabet. A keyboard appears on the screen and the player uses their computer keyboard to fill in the missing letters. It has nice voice output and I like that the letters are highlighted. A very basic, effective activity. This is a great activity for students to review the alphabet and practice keyboarding skills. It presents well on the SMARTBoard and you could either have students use the computer attached to the SMARTBoard or use the SMARTBoard keyboard. ENJOY!

ReadWriteThink Calendar

anne marie — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:06:59 +0000

I came across the website, ReadWriteThink Calendar, and wanted to share. What I like about this resource is that it not only presents daily historical information using text and visual supports, but it also gives you links to lesson plans and other resources to give you ideas and to make lesson preparations easier. It also could be a springboard for students to research and report on specific events on the calendar. I envision it being a good resource to reinforce calendar skills, follow directions, cause/affect, etc. when incorporating it with the SMARTBoard. ENJOY!

I also wanted to mention is that some classrooms have incorporated the History Channel’s This Day in History Video into their daily morning activities with positive results. The site is linked to a picture on the SMART Notebook daily calendar and the students simply touch the picture to activate the video. Very direct, with immediate visual feedback– watching the video! ENJOY!

Alphabet

anne marie — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:08:23 +0000

English Alphabet from NGfL, is a good activity for alphabet/letter review that works well with the SMARTBoard. The initial screen reviews the letters with visual and audio cues. You can then either touch each letter in the alphabet on the top of the screen or click on the arrow in the right bottom corner to advance letters. A new screen will appear with that letter on it. There is an icon box under each letter that, when clicked, will active different features: the pencil will trace the letter, the ear will sound out the letter phonetically, the speaker will say the letter and the 2 lines will stop a feature. Again- a good basic alphabet letter site that works well with the SMARTBoard- ENJOY! Oh yeah, I should perhaps mention that when speaking the letter “Z”- it is not pronounced in English.

Rhyming Words

anne marie — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:26:04 +0000

I have discovered some very cool, and new to me, sites that help assist with reinforcing and reviewing rhyming that I wanted to share. The first is by Golden Books called Cat at Bat. This activity simulates a baseball game- every correct answer scores a run and every wrong answer is an out. Players read the word that appears on the bulletin board and if the pitcher throws a word that rhymes with that word they would click on the word. This activity works well on the SMART Board.

The BBC Little Animals Activity Center also has a fun activity to reinforce rhyming. It offers three difficulty levels. Players must match the rhyming words that appear on the screen. If they pick the correct answer the ground hog will digdown to the word. This activity does have audio support and works well with the SMARTBoard.

PBS has a very cute, fun short rhyming video/activity starring Grover which presents well on the SMART Board. The younger children LOVE watching this one! ENJOY!

Tar Heel Reader

anne marie — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:20:40 +0000

Sharing an interesting site that has been talked about by several people called- Tar Heel Reader . I think I first learned of this site from the amazing Paul Hamilton over on his blog Free Resources from the NET for Every Learner. Tar Heal Reader offers a collection of free, easy to read and accessible books in several different topics. Each book can be speech enabled- the speech controls are on the left of the screen on the title page. These books can be downloaded in PowerPoint, Impress or Flash format. This site also gives you the option to write your own book (you need to register for a free account to access this feature). The books present well on the SMARTBoard and also work well for those students who require switch access. ENJOY!

BBC Games

anne marie — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:13:08 +0000

Want to share another great site from the BBC– KS1 Bitesize Games. This addresses two areas: Literacy and Numeracy. Both present with several subcategories including addition, multiplication, money skills under numeracy and spelling, alphabetical order, phonics under literacy. Each category has three skill level options, presents with some verbal feedback, is animated and fun! These games work well with the SMARTBoard. So if you’re searching for some fun, motivating games to reinforce literacy and numeracy skills look no more– just click on over to KS1 Bitesize Games. ENJOY!

Five Card Flickr

anne marie — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:09:05 +0000

I am finally reading the Tweets from the NECC this year- there were so many great resources shared. Five Card Flickr is one site that I found to be quite interesting. It reminds me somewhat of PicLits, which I wrote about in January, since both incorporate pictures to inspire creative writing skills. You are dealt a set of random images from Flickr and asked to pick five, one from each set. The next step is to create/write a story depicting the images. This activity can be a fun, inspiring way to motivate students to write. For a class project you could use the SMART Board when picking the photos and have students write individual essays and then compare and contrast. ENJOY!

One Word–Save the Word

anne marie — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:57:56 +0000

I stumbled across this great site that has intrigued me, called One Word . The premise is simple– when you click the go button one word will appear on the screen and you have 60 seconds to write about the word. This would be a very nice, fun, engaging activity to motivate students to practice writing skills. As the site states “don’t think. just write.”

I also wanted to mention another site that I find to be very interesting and that is Save The Words. The premise is that you chose a word to “adopt” and ultimately “save”. You click on one of the words that appears on the screen and anther text box will appear with it’s definition, a sentence using the word and the option for you to adopt the word. Very clever!!! I know a Middle School ELA teacher who visits this site once a week with her classes to help increase their vocabulary awareness. She assigns extra credit if students actually adopt words and incorporate these words into their writing assignments– how cooool!!! ENJOY!