Secondary Elementary – Page 54

Volunteer Spot

January 6, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2710 views

What it is: Volunteer Spot could be just what you need to coordinate classroom helpers and volunteers. No more messy sign up clipboards, endless reply-all emails, reminder phone calls, phone tag, and weeks of scheduling to get parents actively involved in your classroom. Coordinating volunteers is easy, just schedule activities, invite volunteers, volunteers sign up with a simple click, and send reminders. You can easily schedule one day events like field trips, or multi-day sign up options for extended volunteer opportunities. You can specify if your need is a supply that needs to be brought or donated, or the need for a helper. Did I mention this is a completely FREE service?

How to integrate Volunteer Spot into the classroom: Volunteer Spot is an excellent time saver for your classroom or school events. It makes communication with potential volunteers simple and keeps you from back and forth communication that can zap your time. Setting up activities and volunteer events is simple and intuitive. It is much like setting up and sending an Evite. Volunteer Spot will even give you a unique URL that you can display on your classroom or school website. Inviting parents and community members into the classroom can be extremely enriching. It gives your students a sense of the importance of education when others are involved. Using Volunteer Spot makes it painless to coordinate volunteers in your classroom, no more excuses!

Tips: Be sure to tell your homeroom parents, coaches, and office staff about Volunteer Spot. It has the potential to make their lives easier and makes you look good in the process! 🙂

Leave a comment and share how you are using Volunteer Spot in your classroom.

Math Snacks

January 5, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3719 views

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What it is: Math Snacks is my new favorite teaching resource for math! Math Snacks are animated videos and games that help students understand math concepts. Each “snack” offers a math concept that students can learn, review, and practice. The snacks are available online or can be accessed for free on a mobile device like the iPhone or iPod. The snacks focus on math concepts that are appropriate for 5th-8th grade. Print materials are available that can be used to help students in applying their conceptual understanding to math problems. Concepts on Math Snacks include ratios, proportions, scale, number line properties, equality and order on the number line, tables, graphs, measurement, and equations.

How to integrate Math Snacks into the classroom: Math Snacks is a fun way for students to visualize difficult to understand math concepts. There are short humorous videos that demonstrate the math concept in action. These videos can be viewed as an introduction to a new concept or as practice and review of learning. The videos can be paused for class discussion about the concept and for solving of problems. All videos are available for viewing online and can be downloaded to an iPod. Some of the iPod downloads also include subtitles. Each video also comes with a learner and teacher guide. Print these guides to direct you in discussion throughout the video and activities.

Tips: A huge THANK YOU to @summersj who introduced me to Math Snacks via Twitter!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Math Snacks in your classroom.

Safe Share TV

January 5, 2010Kelly Tenkely16 Comments11061 views

What it is: Safe Share TV is a fantastic way to share You Tube videos with your students. Safe Share TV removes all distracting and offensive elements that surround a video on You Tube and allows you to share the video with a unique link. Safe Share TV also gives you the option to crop videos before sharing them.

How to integrate Safe Share TV into the classroom: I love the way that Safe Share TV eliminates all of the related videos, comments, links to other videos, etc. from a You Tube video and makes it available with a unique link. You Tube has some excellent videos to use in the classroom on demand. The problem? You Tube can share too much with your students. Related videos may be inappropriate for the classroom, or comments left by others may be offensive. Just today I was searching for a School House Rock video for one of our first grade teachers. I found the video on You Tube but shared it via Safe Share TV so that the distracting content would be excluded. This is the perfect way to share You Tube videos with students on a projector, interactive whiteboard, or as part of a center activity on classroom computers.

Tips: Safe Share TV includes cropping capability for You Tube videos, it is simple to crop videos down to the exact clip that you want to use with students.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Safe Share TV in your classroom.

iboard: How Far Away do You Live?

December 27, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1677 views

What it is: iboard’s How Far Away Do You Live? is an excellent interactive activity for the interactive whiteboard or for use with a projector. Students create labels with their names and pin them on a graphic chart to depict how close they live to the school. Students can also add places to the graphic such as restaurants and stores. This is a great way to begin discussions about distance and introduce some new math language. When students have finished placing themselves on the graphic, they can compare the results on a block graph.

How to integrate iboard: How Far Away Do You Live? into the classroom: How Far Away Do You Live? is a neat interactive to teach students math language about distance, how to read a graph, and how to describe objects in relation to each other. Begin by defining what it means to live close to the school. What does it mean to be “very close” is that one block away, around the corner, less than a mile, a 5 minute walk, closer than the shop on the corner? Define what each distance will mean on your chart. Then, invite students to the board to add a sticky note where they think their house falls on the chart. After everyone has been added to the chart ask questions such as: “Who lives closest to the school?” and “Who is the furthest away?” Finish by looking at the block graph and discussing how many students fall into each category. This is a great way to teach your students to create and read informational charts and graphs.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. How Far Away Do You Live? is one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: How Far Away Do You Live? in your classroom.

iboard: Treasure Hunt

December 22, 2009December 22, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1906 views

What it is: Treasure Hunt is an interactive game where students practice following directions to coordinates on a grid. Students are given a set of directions that they must follow to find a hidden treasure. Directions are in the format of left, right, up, and down.

How to integrate Treasure Hunt into the classroom: Treasure Hunt gives students a platform to practice direction. Students are given directions such as take 3 steps right, take 1 step down, take 4 steps left, dig. If students have followed the directions correctly, they will reveal a hidden treasure. Use Treasure Hunt for a whole class game. Split students into two teams. Have each team form a line at the interactive whiteboard. Team one sends up their first player to follow the first direction, then the next player on team one takes a turn, etc. If they correctly follow directions and dig up a treasure their team receives a point. Repeat with team two. Students could also practice coordinates at a math center on the classroom computers.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. Treasure Hunt is one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: Treasure Hunt in your classroom.

iboard: Shopping to a Budget

December 22, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3138 views

What it is: Shopping to a Budget is another of iboard’s offering. Students are given a set amount of money to spend. They can choose to “purchase” a variety of candies to spend all of their money. This is a UK site so all of the coins are British (not US dollar). There are 3 levels of difficulty to choose from. With each level of difficulty, the amount to spend increases.

How to integrate Shopping to a Budget into the classroom: Shopping to a Budget helps students practice budgeting and counting coins. Shopping to a Budget gives students the opportunity to use and practice addition and subtraction. Students also practice using math language (“you’ve spent 10p, how much more to 27p? What is the difference?”) This is a fun little activity for practicing counting money, addition, and subtraction on the interactive whiteboard. Split students into teams and reveal the target numbers. Students can work within their teams to decide what their team would buy. Invite one team up to the board to demonstrate how they solved the problem. Other teams can offer ideas about how they solved the problem differently. Shopping to a Budget would also make a great practice center on classroom computers or in a computer lab setting.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. Shopping to a Budget is one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: Shopping to a Budget in your classroom.

iboard: Crossing the Water

December 22, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2212 views

What it is: Crossing the Water is a great logic game for the interactive whiteboard that encourages problem solving as students try to get a family across the water safely. Teachers can set up the activity with a set number of adults and children, students guess how many trips will have to be made to get the whole family across the water. If there is too much weight in the boat, it will sink.

How to integrate Crossing the Water into the classroom: Crossing the Water is a fun logic and problem solving activity for students to work out. Use Crossing the Water as an introduction mind bending activity to begin math class. Students can work individually or in small groups to work out their strategy. Call groups up to the whiteboard to demonstrate their solution. Compare the solution with the way that other groups solved the problem. Because you can change the number of adults and children in the problem, each day can present a new challenge. Crossing the Water could also be used as a math center activity on classroom computers.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. Crossing the Water is one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: Crossing the Water in your classroom.

iboard: Visual Numbers

December 14, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1555 views

What it is: Visual Numbers is another great sample application from iboard for interactive whiteboards. Visual Numbers lets students add numbers (1-20) to the workspace above. You can show or hide counters to represent each number. This is a fantastic visual for students learning how to count, add, subtract, or multiply.

How to integrate iboard: Visual Numbers into the classroom: Visual Numbers will help your students to visualize number concepts. Ask students to add all the numbers on the workspace without the spots, then reveal the spots for students to check their answers. Put several numbers in the workspace and ask students to order numbers from smallest to largest. Reveal the spots so that students can check their answers and visualize which numbers are smallest and which are largest. Teach beginning multiplication skills by putting groups of numbers on the board (for example three groups of eight). Students can visualize what 3 groups of 8 looks like by revealing the spots. Visual Numbers is wonderful for the interactive whiteboard or as a math center on classroom computers.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. Visual Numbers is one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: Visual Numbers in your classroom.

iboard: Interactive Number Square

December 14, 2009December 14, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2996 views

What it is: Interactive Number Square is another great sample application from iboard for interactive whiteboards. This number grid is versatile allowing you to hide numbers, change the color of squares, change the start number of the grid, add more or less columns and rows, and choose a step number.

How to integrate iboard: Interactive Number Square into the classroom: Interactive Number Square is a wonderful tool for teaching various number concepts. Hide some numbers and ask students to determine which numbers are missing based on those left on the board. Ask them if the numbers are in a pattern, go up in steps of 1, 2, 5, etc. Create a number pattern and hide the answers. Encourage students to keep the pattern going as long as they can and then invite students to check their answers on the Number Square. The Number Square can be used for everything from counting, to learning multiples, to skip counting, to adding, to introducing algebraic concepts and understanding number relationships. Students can interact with the Number Square on an interactive whiteboard or on classroom computers as a math center.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. Interactive Number Square one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: Interactive Number Square in your classroom.

National Geographic Image Collection

December 11, 2009December 11, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3081 views

What it is: National Geographic is known for their poignant images. Now, those images can be viewed online in the National Geographic Image Collection. There are more than 11 million images that chronicle the world from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Students can also view the history of photography from daguerreotypes to digital through an interactive time line. The image collection includes images related to exploration, wild life, people and cultures, and science and climate change.

How to integrate National Geographic Image Collection into the classroom: The National Geographic Image Collection is an impressive set of images from around the world. The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” proves to be true. These images are indeed worth a thousand words or more. Use these images to help you tell the story of our world as you teach students about history, science, wild life, and world culture. These images will help to connect your students with learning in ways that a textbook can’t. Use the Image Collection for creative writing prompts. Allow your students to choose an image from the collection to tell a story about. The interactive time line can be used to teach students about the history of photography.

Tips: I learned about this site from a Tweet by @McTeach a few weeks ago on Twitter, thanks Karen!

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