SMART Boards in the classroom

www.multiplication.com

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If you are a teacher or parent of a school-age child, www.multiplication.com is the best site I’ve found for practicing the basic X facts.  This site includes worksheets, timed tests, hands-on classroom games, and flash cards, but the real treasure is the assortment of interactive computer games for learning individual fact families.  While mixed practice is also available, it’s wonderful to focus on just the recently introduced fact family.  The plethora of games includes “Classroom Capers,” “Jungle Jim Goes Fishing,” and “Patty’s Paints.”

I like to model a new game for the entire class each week.  Then, while the students complete a practice worksheet on the fact family we are currently learning, one student goes to the SMART™ Board to play the game and another watches and waits in the batter’s box.  For some games, the student can take the full timed minute to try to answer as many questions correctly and attempt to earn a high score.  In these cases, the game becomes a competition amongst the students.  Other games may require a limit of 5 problems per student, because the rounds take several minutes to complete.  It may also depend on the amount of time you can set aside and the number of students in your classroom.  I find that as students finish the independent worksheet, they watch their classmates at the SMART™ Board.  This allows the other students to finish their paper assignment at their own pace, and keeps early finishers engaged.

Seating Chart

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Seating Chart

Do you still make paper and pencil seating charts?  Now with SMART™ Notebook, you can create a template of your classroom floor plan and manipulate the students’ names whenever you feel it’s necessary to switch things up.  It also eliminates the need for the teacher to move the desks after school.  Let the students view the setup and work with a partner to move desks to the new arrangement.
 

The First Way to Bulid Your Seating Chart

  1. Use the square drawing tool to make a desk.  Add a fill color (tan) to the square, if you’d like.  Use the infinite cloner option by clicking on the drop-down arrow of the first desk.  Drag 24 (or the maximum number of students in your room) squares from the original.  Remove infinite cloner from the first square.  Position the desks in the arrangement you would prefer.  Lock them in place so that they don’t move accidently when you attempt to adjust the name textboxes later on.
  2. Add shapes for necessary furniture, the SMART™ Board, or the classroom door if you’d like.
  3. Make one textbox with your longest students’ name.  Use the “Infinite Cloner” option by clicking on the drop-down arrow of the textbox.  Drag 24 (or the maximum number of students in your room) textboxes from the original.  Remove infinite cloner from the first name.  Position the names on each desk.  Double-click on each textbox to change the name.
     

The Second Way to Build Your Seating Chart

  1. Use the square drawing tool to make one desk.  Add a fill color (tan) to the square, if you’d like.  Use the infinite cloner option by clicking on the drop-down arrow of the first desk.  Drag 4 (or the maximum number of students in a table group or row) squares from the original.  Remove infinite cloner from the first square.  Position the 4 desks in the table or row arrangement you would prefer.  Group the table or row of desk by marquee selecting them all, choosing one of the drop-down arrows, and selecting “Grouping” and the sub category of “Group.”  Infinitely clone this group of desks until you’ve filled the page with the maximum number of tables or rows you need. Position them before marquee selecting all of the tables or rows and “Locking” them in place so that they don’t move accidently when you attempt to adjust the name textboxes later on.
  2. Add shapes for necessary furniture, the SMART™ Board, or the classroom door if you’d like.
  3. Make one textbox with your longest students’ name.  Make 4 textboxes by using the “Infinite Cloner” option.  Position the 4 textboxes in one of the table or row arrangements.  Group these four textboxes (not the desks) marquee selecting them all, choosing one of the drop-down arrows, and selecting “Grouping” and the sub category of “Group.”  Infinitely clone this group of 4 textboxes until you’ve filled the page with the maximum number of names you need. Remove infinite cloner from the first group of textboxes.  Position the textboxes (grouped) on each table or row before selecting “Grouping” and “Ungroup.” Double-click on each textbox to change the names.

Infinite Cloner

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Infinite Cloner

Do you want students to have an infinite bank of coins to use in a SMART™ Board activity?  Do you need many textboxes to create and manipulate individual student names?  Save yourself time and/or space on SMART™ pages by using the “Infinite Cloner” function.

  • Click on your image or text.  A dotted blue line will appear around it to signify it was selected to have an action performed.
  • Using the drop-down arrow in the upper right corner of the selected text or image, choose “Infinite Cloner.”
  • Now you can create duplicates by simply dragging the image or text to a new area of the page.
  • To remove, click on the image or text and a dotted, blue line will appear.  Click on the infinity symbol in the upper right corner of the image or text.  Then click on the words “Infinite Cloner” to uncheck and stop the infinite cloner function.

BrainPOP

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BrainPOP

Let Tim and Moby escort you and your students on a topical adventure! Use these approximately two- to five-minute animated videos at BrainPOP to enhance your reading, writing, English, math, science, social studies, art, music, technology, etc. lessons. The best feature is the ten-question multiple-choice quiz that follows each video. Get all of your students involved in responding to these comprehension checks! Activity ideas and worksheets accompany each topic as well. This is one of my favorite sites to support the skills and topics of study I teach. While you’ll need to purchase a subscriptions to fully take advantage of this site (and its partner sites BrainPOP, Jr. and BrainPOP, Espanol), there are several free videos. Click on “Free Stuff” to see it all. BrainPOP, Jr. is intended for K-3 grades and BP is geared toward 3-12 grades. Preview the video you think you’d like to show before airing it. Sometimes the vocabulary and content is too challenging for my third graders, so not all videos are appropriate to show.  You’ll also want to register for the free “BrainPOP Educators.”  Gain access to all of the activity pages, various graphic organizers, ideas for using BrainPOP in your classroom, and a lot more!

Erase to Reveal

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Erase to Reveal

Using a SMART Board™ certainly motivates and engages learners of all ages.  After awhile, you may find it more challenging to keep their interests piqued.  Spice up your Notebook™ lessons by including the “Erase to Reveal” trick.  Follow the three simple steps below.   

1.  Select a pen color that matches your background.

2.  Color over the text you’d like to hide with that pen color.

3.  Use the eraser to remove the ink and reveal the hidden text.

Try having the entire class concentrate really hard on the right answer.  Then ask a student to rub the eraser tool over the area to reveal the answer.  They’ll think it’s magic!  Kids love to be entertained by their teachers and get involved in lessons.  “Erase to Reveal” does both!

Set Picture Transparency

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Set Picture Transparency

When you find free clipart online or through programs like Microsoft Word and want to insert it into a SMART Notebook™ file with a colored background, do you ever find that a white box appears around the graphic?  Follow these steps to remove that distracting block by making it transparent.

1.  Click on your image.  A blue line will appear around it to signify it was selected to have an action performed.

2.  Using the drop-down arrow, select “Set Picture Transparency.”

3.  Use the eyedropper to select the places you’d like to be the same color as the background of your page.  The white area will be removed.  These areas will become transparent.  Select “OK” when you are done.

Online Stopwatch

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Online Stopwatch

Do you give your students timed tasks?  Do you use a kitchen timer, sand hourglass, stopwatch, or the classroom clock to mark the time?  Last year a colleague of mine turned me on to www.online-stopwatch.com.  The students are actually able to watch the countdown as it happens on the SMART Board™ and better pace themselves.  Teachers can choose from several versions including a digital clock, analog clock, egg timer, bomb, or split lap timer.  I use this site for giving math fact timed tests or oral reading fluency timed assessments.  It is also useful for counting down to the end of group work or setting time limits for transitions between tasks.

Lunch Count

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Lunch Count

One of the first pages I created to help facilitate classroom management was a lunch count page in SMART Notebook™.  As the students enter the classroom each morning and begin their morning tasks of turning in homework and notes, putting away their bags and coats, sharpening pencils, etc. they take 3 seconds to read the hot lunch option and drag the textbox with their name to the meal they’d like for the day.  When the students have settled into their seats to work on spelling, I can glance at the SMART Board™ and clearly see how many students selected each lunch option and who is absent.

Magic Pen Tool

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Magic Pen Tool

The Magic Pen tool is an additional gadget in the latest version of SMART Notebook™.  It allows users to spotlight, to magnify, and use disappearing ink.  Simply click on the Magic Pen icon on the top toolbar with your finger (or mouse cursor) to select this function.  Then use your finger to write a word or draw a line.  After a few seconds, the magical blue ink vanishes!  Draw a complete circle and a spotlight will appear.  The size and location can be altered by dragging up/down, left/right in the center of the circle.  Draw a complete rectangle, and you’ll get a magnifying tool.  Play around with this amazing feature, and you’ll find many ways to use it in your teaching.