Tag: template

Lucky Star Game Show for SMART boards

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Lucky Star Game Show for SMART boards3253 views

What it is: Cyberchase is an animated math series on PBS Kids. Now, Cyberchase is making math even more fun with an interactive game show called Lucky Star.  The game show is a free download for the SMART Notebook software. Lucky Star was designed for kids in 3rd-5th grade.  The game show has kids competing for top scores while building important math skills.  Lucky Star has 150 questions that focus on problem solving, algebraic thinking, number and operations, geometry, measurement, and more.  The game show includes an on-screen think pad (a drop down area where students can work the problems with the pen.  The game show also includes some great virtual manipulatives that students can interact with on the interactive whiteboard.  Want more? Create your own questions tailored to your curriculum using the Cyberchase characters and props.  You can customize the game for your students needs.

How to integrate Lucky Star into your curriculum: Lucky Star is a fun way for your students to practice math. The ability to create your own questions that are tailored to your math curriculum means that this is game can be used all year. The game show makes for a great math warm up to get those brains thinking math.  Use Lucky Star as a fun class competition, split your students into teams for a little friendly math competition.  Your students will love the game show feel that Lucky Star has.  Any time I play games with my whole class, I really play it up.  Act the part of Game Show host and get into the game with your students.   Hold weekly competitions or semester long competitions to see who can get the top score.  Hold a fun math themed party for all of the “contestants” at the end of the competition.  When I taught second grade this meant bringing out all of the kids favorite math games and calling them by their class number all day instead of their names.  To mix it up, I might call on student number 10 by saying “I need 5+5 to line up third in line”.  It was a fun way to have fun with math and celebrate the hard work of all of my students.

Tips: I couldn’t get the Lucky Star Game Show download to open in ActivInspire (for Promethean) even using the Smart Notebook option.  I also couldn’t get the download to open in SMART Notebook’s interactive viewer. If anyone has a trick or luck with either of these let me know and I’ll update the post accordingly!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Lucky Star in your classroom!

Technology & Character Education: A Lesson in Empathy

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Technology & Character Education: A Lesson in Empathy16430 views

Empathy is an important cornerstone in character education; developing empathy can help prevent negative social behaviors such as bullying, spitefulness, and alienation.  It is a key social emotion and when developed brings an awareness of ones own emotions as well as those of others.  Using Apple’s Photo Booth and Pages (or Seenly and Microsoft Word), students can make a “How are you feeling?” poster of emotions.  These posters teach students to recognize what their own emotions look like and help them to recognize them in others. If you don’t have access to built in cameras or web cams, digital cameras can be used in their place.  The completed posters can be used for various character education lessons throughout the year and make for a nice year-long bulletin board in the classroom. The posters are also useful when discussing literary characters and their feelings/emotions, as well as an aid in conflict resolution for younger students.  The Feelings posters are a helpful tool for autistic children as they help them recognize facial expressions and emotions in themselves and others.

The lessons in empathy is perfect for kindergarten through sixth grade.  Three templates are included in the lesson k-1 grade, 2-3 grade, and 4-6 grade.  As a computer teacher, I completed this lesson with my students every year from kindergarten-fifth grade.  By the fifth grade, students had a collection of 6 feelings posters that showcased each year of school.  Parents saved these posters as a keepsake.

This collection includes a lesson plan, templates, an emotions card game, and suggestions for sharing the template with student computers.  There are two options for download, one for use with Apple’s Pages and PhotoBooth (or digital camera) and one for use with Microsoft Word and Seenly (or digital camera).  The Pages option is for use with Macintosh only.  The Microsoft Word option is for use with Mac or PC. In this lesson students will practice using text boxes, drag and drop, mouse manipulation, inserting images, and resizing.  Click here to find the Feelings Poster Lesson in Empathy in the iLearn Technology store.

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Google Me Business Card

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Google Me Business Card4488 views

What it is: Google Me Business Card is a free template download from Ji Lee.   The template is a PDF file of a blank Google Search query; enter any name, subject or topic and print out your own customized Google Me Business Card.

How to integrate Google Me Business Cards into your curriculum: These business cards could be used in the classroom during a discussion of digital footprints.  Students can create their own Google Me cards to act as a reminder that what they do online has staying power.  (This is an important reminder for teachers too!)  The cards could also be used as a fun way to assign research topics; enter the topic in the search box and let students draw a card to find out what their assignment is.

Tips: To add your own text: In Acrobat Professional, open the PDF and go to Forms, Form Tools, Text field.  Now you can add a text field to enter your own text.

In Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign, place the card on a new document and type your text with the text tool.

Take a screen shot of the image and import it into a word document program (Pages is my Word Document program of choice) Add a text box over the search box and enter your text.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Google Me Business Card in your classroom!