Die for Smooth Transitions

January 31, 2015June 27, 2021 / Kristen Foley / Leave a comment

One of the greatest challenges for teachers is smooth transitions between activities. We often loose control of the class to chatter and chaos when we ask them to move from one location to another. In the SMART Notebook gallery, you will find a variety of dice. Choose one that can be edited. I prefer to label the six sides with table 1, table 2, table 3, etc. A student helper taps the die, and the next group to line up is decided. The students remain quiet as they anticipate the next roll. Movement is done in small chunks and so much time and energy is saved! Give it a roll in your classroom. You’ll just “die” for these smooth transitions!

Got Wordle?

February 10, 2013November 22, 2020 / Kristen Foley / Leave a comment

Wordle, www.wordle.net, is a website for creating word clouds. Simply type in a series of words using commas. The more often the word is included, the larger it will appear in the final word cloud. Then customize the themes, fonts, and colors. Use the SMART camera tool to take a picture and add it to your SMART file. There are a variety of classroom applications. Ask your students to write down five words to describe a character from a story, a scientific concept following the unit of story, or an upcoming holiday. This can be an individual or small group task. Or create a Wordle on a topic of study and use it to preview the chapter. Students can view it and make connections to prior knowledge. Or type each of your student’s names to create a class word cloud that can be an image on your classroom website or your classroom computer’s desktop background. TIP: Type your words in a Word document and paste them into the field on the site. Because if you decide to “go back” and add, delete, or change words, you will be sent back to the home page. Your work is not saved on the site. Also, for two words that you’d like to stay together such as United States, put a ~ between the words (United~States).

Infinite Cloner

February 10, 2010November 22, 2020 / Kristen Foley / Leave a comment

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

January 10, 2010November 22, 2020 / Kristen Foley / Leave a comment

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

December 8, 2009April 14, 2010 / Kristen Foley / 1 Comment

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!

Lunch Count

September 3, 2009April 14, 2010 / Kristen Foley / 3 Comments

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

August 3, 2009November 22, 2020 / Kristen Foley / Leave a comment

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.

SMARTtech™.com

July 3, 2009November 22, 2020 / Kristen Foley / Leave a comment

Searching through various websites with SMART Board™ lessons can be overwhelming. Allow me to showcase one site at a time to help you navigate these collections.

My favorite resource for pre-made SMART Board™ lessons is www.smarttech.com. It allows you to filter your search by grade and subject. You can also view Two-Minute Tutorial videos or read Quick Reference Guides on the basic features of SMART Notebook™ and other SMART™ products/software. Here are the direct links to the ones I’d recommend for new users.

SMART™ Lesson Activities (U.S.)

SMART Notebook™ 10 Toolbars Quick Reference Guide

SMART Notebook™ 10 Gallery Quick Reference Guide

SMART Notebook™ Software Learner Resource
This is a 38-page booklet with everything a new user needs to know to get started.