SMARTBoards and Count Us In Games
Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can use the Count Us In website to play some very engaging Math concept games on their SMART Board interactive whiteboard. Each game is very simple to use and allows students to interact with the information in a fun and engaging manner.
Three of the activities require a keyboard input but the remainder of the games can be played by touching and/or dragging objects to the correct location.
Teachers can also download these activities and run them directly from their local computer. This is a good way to make the activities fit on the entire SMART Board.
Simple Diagrams..and I mean Simple
Simple Diagrams is a site dedicated to creating...well, simple diagrams. Stick figures, word clouds, and arrows. For students who can easily be distracted this seems like a great option. It also puts the emphasis on the contact and not on all the bells and whistles a software can provide. It uses simple drag and drop features. It is a software that you download to your computer and not web based. There are more features that are available for a paid version of the software. More information on the Free Version and Paid Version (only $19) are available on the site.
Here is a screen-shot from their website of the Free Version. If you decide to pay for the software you will receive access to some other libraries of images that you can use. The Free version for us cash strapped educators seems to offer plenty for classroom use. Maybe an educational library will be available in the future.
SMARTBoards and The Magic Key
The BBC has a wonderful interactive site called The Magic Key based on the Oxford Reading Tree learning program. The site contains nine literacy "adventures" for children that all work great with the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard.The Magic Key website is aimed at children aged 5-6 years and follows the TV programmes in which Kipper, Biff, Chip, Wilf, Wilma and Floppy go off on their adventures.
SMARTBoards and Invention at Play
Looking for something fun AND educational for your SMARTBoard? Okay, that's a retorical question but it really sums up the Invention at Play site on the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (maybe the can "invent" a shorter name).
The Invention Playhouse has four flash-based interactive activities for yourstudents to use at the SMART Board. TheCloud Dreamer activity 
lets students create their own cloud image and then see it float across
the sky. The Puzzle Blocks is a fun activity for manipulating shapes to create an image; Word Play lets students create and change unique stories in a fun and collaborative manner; and the Tinker Ballactivity lets students move and manipulate tools to solve a simple gravity problem.
All the activities work great on the SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard. If you're using Internet Explorer, I would recommend "zooming" in on the activity to make it fill the screen. If you're using Firefox browser, you'll want to use theFlash Game Maximizer Add On to have the activities fill the screen.
Furbles
This is a great site I heard about at the Blast Conference I recently presented at. It is called Furbles, the site offers demo versions to work with. It is a great way to engage young students in maths activities by looking at shapes, numbers and colours. Students can also see the relationship between data and visual interpretations such as bar graphs, tables and pie charts. These would be great activities to use on an Interactive Whiteboard.
Place Value Games
The website:
This fantastic resource for interactive whiteboard tools has been circulating on Twitter. The site provides excellent manipulatives, gameboards, workmats and storyboards for K-4 classrooms.
Virtual Maths Manipulatives
I nearly always use my IWB (interactive whiteboard) for Maths whole-class introductions and often small group instruction. Publisher McGraw Hill and Glencoe have a great maths resource for your IWB that is an alternative to IWB software. It is called Virtual Manipulatives.Virtual Manipulatives is a Flash based website with interactive manipulatives that students and teachers can use to introduce or reinforce maths concepts. It is suitable for students from Kindergarten to Year Eight.
SMARTBoards and Count Us In Games
Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can use the Count Us In website to play some very engaging Math concept games on their SMART Board interactive whiteboard. Each game is very simple to use and allows students to interact with the information in a fun and engaging manner.
Three of the activities require a keyboard input but the remainder of the games can be played by touching and/or dragging objects to the correct location.
Teachers can also download these activities and run them directly from their local computer. This is a good way to make the activities fit on the entire SMART Board.
Simple Diagrams..and I mean Simple
Simple Diagrams is a site dedicated to creating...well, simple diagrams. Stick figures, word clouds, and arrows. For students who can easily be distracted this seems like a great option. It also puts the emphasis on the contact and not on all the bells and whistles a software can provide. It uses simple drag and drop features. It is a software that you download to your computer and not web based. There are more features that are available for a paid version of the software. More information on the Free Version and Paid Version (only $19) are available on the site.
Here is a screen-shot from their website of the Free Version. If you decide to pay for the software you will receive access to some other libraries of images that you can use. The Free version for us cash strapped educators seems to offer plenty for classroom use. Maybe an educational library will be available in the future.
SMARTBoards and The Magic Key
The BBC has a wonderful interactive site called The Magic Key based on the Oxford Reading Tree learning program. The site contains nine literacy "adventures" for children that all work great with the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard.The Magic Key website is aimed at children aged 5-6 years and follows the TV programmes in which Kipper, Biff, Chip, Wilf, Wilma and Floppy go off on their adventures.
SMARTBoards and Invention at Play
Looking for something fun AND educational for your SMARTBoard? Okay, that's a retorical question but it really sums up the Invention at Play site on the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (maybe the can "invent" a shorter name).
The Invention Playhouse has four flash-based interactive activities for yourstudents to use at the SMART Board. TheCloud Dreamer activity lets students create their own cloud image and then see it float across
the sky. The Puzzle Blocks is a fun activity for manipulating shapes to create an image; Word Play lets students create and change unique stories in a fun and collaborative manner; and the Tinker Ballactivity lets students move and manipulate tools to solve a simple gravity problem.
All the activities work great on the SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard. If you're using Internet Explorer, I would recommend "zooming" in on the activity to make it fill the screen. If you're using Firefox browser, you'll want to use theFlash Game Maximizer Add On to have the activities fill the screen.
Furbles
This is a great site I heard about at the Blast Conference I recently presented at. It is called Furbles, the site offers demo versions to work with. It is a great way to engage young students in maths activities by looking at shapes, numbers and colours. Students can also see the relationship between data and visual interpretations such as bar graphs, tables and pie charts. These would be great activities to use on an Interactive Whiteboard.
SMARTBoards and Count Us In Games
Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can use the Count Us In website to play some very engaging Math concept games on their SMART Board interactive whiteboard. Each game is very simple to use and allows students to interact with the information in a fun and engaging manner.
Three of the activities require a keyboard input but the remainder of the games can be played by touching and/or dragging objects to the correct location.
Teachers can also download these activities and run them directly from their local computer. This is a good way to make the activities fit on the entire SMART Board.
Simple Diagrams..and I mean Simple
Simple Diagrams is a site dedicated to creating...well, simple diagrams. Stick figures, word clouds, and arrows. For students who can easily be distracted this seems like a great option. It also puts the emphasis on the contact and not on all the bells and whistles a software can provide. It uses simple drag and drop features. It is a software that you download to your computer and not web based. There are more features that are available for a paid version of the software. More information on the Free Version and Paid Version (only $19) are available on the site.
Here is a screen-shot from their website of the Free Version. If you decide to pay for the software you will receive access to some other libraries of images that you can use. The Free version for us cash strapped educators seems to offer plenty for classroom use. Maybe an educational library will be available in the future.
SMARTBoards and The Magic Key
The BBC has a wonderful interactive site called The Magic Key based on the Oxford Reading Tree learning program. The site contains nine literacy "adventures" for children that all work great with the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard.The Magic Key website is aimed at children aged 5-6 years and follows the TV programmes in which Kipper, Biff, Chip, Wilf, Wilma and Floppy go off on their adventures.
SMARTBoards and Count Us In Games
Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can use the Count Us In website to play some very engaging Math concept games on their SMART Board interactive whiteboard. Each game is very simple to use and allows students to interact with the information in a fun and engaging manner.
Three of the activities require a keyboard input but the remainder of the games can be played by touching and/or dragging objects to the correct location.
Teachers can also download these activities and run them directly from their local computer. This is a good way to make the activities fit on the entire SMART Board.
Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can use the Count Us In website to play some very engaging Math concept games on their SMART Board interactive whiteboard. Each game is very simple to use and allows students to interact with the information in a fun and engaging manner.
Three of the activities require a keyboard input but the remainder of the games can be played by touching and/or dragging objects to the correct location.
Teachers can also download these activities and run them directly from their local computer. This is a good way to make the activities fit on the entire SMART Board.
Three of the activities require a keyboard input but the remainder of the games can be played by touching and/or dragging objects to the correct location.
Teachers can also download these activities and run them directly from their local computer. This is a good way to make the activities fit on the entire SMART Board.
Simple Diagrams..and I mean Simple
Simple Diagrams is a site dedicated to creating...well, simple diagrams. Stick figures, word clouds, and arrows. For students who can easily be distracted this seems like a great option. It also puts the emphasis on the contact and not on all the bells and whistles a software can provide. It uses simple drag and drop features. It is a software that you download to your computer and not web based. There are more features that are available for a paid version of the software. More information on the Free Version and Paid Version (only $19) are available on the site.Here is a screen-shot from their website of the Free Version. If you decide to pay for the software you will receive access to some other libraries of images that you can use. The Free version for us cash strapped educators seems to offer plenty for classroom use. Maybe an educational library will be available in the future.
The BBC has a wonderful interactive site called The Magic Key based on the Oxford Reading Tree learning program. The site contains nine literacy "adventures" for children that all work great with the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard.SMARTBoards and Invention at Play
Looking for something fun AND educational for your SMARTBoard? Okay, that's a retorical question but it really sums up the Invention at Play site on the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (maybe the can "invent" a shorter name).
The Invention Playhouse has four flash-based interactive activities for yourstudents to use at the SMART Board. TheCloud Dreamer activitylets students create their own cloud image and then see it float across
the sky. The Puzzle Blocks is a fun activity for manipulating shapes to create an image; Word Play lets students create and change unique stories in a fun and collaborative manner; and the Tinker Ballactivity lets students move and manipulate tools to solve a simple gravity problem.
All the activities work great on the SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard. If you're using Internet Explorer, I would recommend "zooming" in on the activity to make it fill the screen. If you're using Firefox browser, you'll want to use theFlash Game Maximizer Add On to have the activities fill the screen.
The Invention Playhouse has four flash-based interactive activities for yourstudents to use at the SMART Board. TheCloud Dreamer activity
lets students create their own cloud image and then see it float across the sky. The Puzzle Blocks is a fun activity for manipulating shapes to create an image; Word Play lets students create and change unique stories in a fun and collaborative manner; and the Tinker Ballactivity lets students move and manipulate tools to solve a simple gravity problem.
All the activities work great on the SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard. If you're using Internet Explorer, I would recommend "zooming" in on the activity to make it fill the screen. If you're using Firefox browser, you'll want to use theFlash Game Maximizer Add On to have the activities fill the screen.
This is a great site I heard about at the Blast Conference I recently presented at. It is called Furbles, the site offers demo versions to work with. It is a great way to engage young students in maths activities by looking at shapes, numbers and colours. Students can also see the relationship between data and visual interpretations such as bar graphs, tables and pie charts. These would be great activities to use on an Interactive Whiteboard.
Place Value Games
The website:
This fantastic resource for interactive whiteboard tools has been circulating on Twitter. The site provides excellent manipulatives, gameboards, workmats and storyboards for K-4 classrooms.
I nearly always use my IWB (interactive whiteboard) for Maths whole-class introductions and often small group instruction. Publisher McGraw Hill and Glencoe have a great maths resource for your IWB that is an alternative to IWB software. It is called Virtual Manipulatives.
Virtual Manipulatives is a Flash based website with interactive manipulatives that students and teachers can use to introduce or reinforce maths concepts. It is suitable for students from Kindergarten to Year Eight.
Have Fun With “Dotty-Dots”
Dotty-Dots first lets you type in a message. Then it turns that message into cool-looking interactive connected dots. Students can then post the link to their creation on a student/teacher blog or website.
Visualize, Explore, & Collaborate with (Free) Interactive Whiteboards!
Dabbleboard (to be exact) is “an online collaboration application that’s centered around the whiteboard.” Neat right? Well, it gets better!
One of the really cool things about Dabbleboard is how realistic their interactive whiteboard really is. The interface is so advanced that it feels like a normal whiteboard. You can draw images free-handed, drag-and-drop shapes, edit the shapes, type anywhere, highlight things, group them, rotate, etc…
So, maybe you already have a bunch of ideas for using interactive whiteboards in the classroom (if so, you should definitely share below in the comment section!) and maybe you have no idea where to even begin! Well, lucky for you, I’ve created a list of different things you can do with interactive whiteboards in the classroom. But first, I just wanted to mention a few reasons why I like interactive whiteboards.
For the obvious reason: It’s interactive! This is going to allow your students to get more involved with lessons and subject areas, enhance their skills, and get excited for class! Tell me, who doesn’t want motivated students? =) Not only are interactive whiteboards good for getting students excited about subject areas or lessons but it’s going to encourage their critical thinking skills, especially with mind-mapping activities! So, let’s start talking about all the different things you can do in the classroom with interactive whiteboards!
- Teaching steps to a math problem! This can also be interactive with students to come up and participate as well.
- Use the highlighter tool to highlight nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc…
- Digital storytelling! Imagine the possibilities with this one!
- Use pictures of maps to teach continents, oceans, countries, capitals, and even states!
- Mind mapping activities!
- Reinforce grammar skills with practice problems! Have the students correct example sentences!
There are a TON of different ways you can use an interactive whiteboard in your classroom and I hope these suggestions have started the wheels turning in that brain of yours. There is one last thing I want to say aboutDabbleboard that I think is of *some* importance to you. =) How much is it? Well, as most things that I post about here on SimpleK12, it’s FREE! Hooray! There is also special education pricing if the free deal isn’t enough (but I’m pretty confident you will find the free version more than sufficient).
Have Fun With “Dotty-Dots”
Dotty-Dots first lets you type in a message. Then it turns that message into cool-looking interactive connected dots. Students can then post the link to their creation on a student/teacher blog or website.
Dabbleboard (to be exact) is “an online collaboration application that’s centered around the whiteboard.” Neat right? Well, it gets better!One of the really cool things about Dabbleboard is how realistic their interactive whiteboard really is. The interface is so advanced that it feels like a normal whiteboard. You can draw images free-handed, drag-and-drop shapes, edit the shapes, type anywhere, highlight things, group them, rotate, etc…
So, maybe you already have a bunch of ideas for using interactive whiteboards in the classroom (if so, you should definitely share below in the comment section!) and maybe you have no idea where to even begin! Well, lucky for you, I’ve created a list of different things you can do with interactive whiteboards in the classroom. But first, I just wanted to mention a few reasons why I like interactive whiteboards.
For the obvious reason: It’s interactive! This is going to allow your students to get more involved with lessons and subject areas, enhance their skills, and get excited for class! Tell me, who doesn’t want motivated students? =) Not only are interactive whiteboards good for getting students excited about subject areas or lessons but it’s going to encourage their critical thinking skills, especially with mind-mapping activities! So, let’s start talking about all the different things you can do in the classroom with interactive whiteboards!
- Teaching steps to a math problem! This can also be interactive with students to come up and participate as well.
- Use the highlighter tool to highlight nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc…
- Digital storytelling! Imagine the possibilities with this one!
- Use pictures of maps to teach continents, oceans, countries, capitals, and even states!
- Mind mapping activities!
- Reinforce grammar skills with practice problems! Have the students correct example sentences!
Topmarks
Topmarks is a educational search engine and one of the better ones around, that I found out about from the amazing blog by Jonathan Wylie's, Education Technology Blog!! Not only can you search for excellent resources, but there are great links for whiteboard sites and educational games as well.I highly recommend giving Topmarks a try by clicking here!!
Bring your IWB to life with Little Animation for Kids
from Welcome to NCS-Tech! by Kevin Jarrett
http://www.littleanimation4kids.com/ is the kind of free, excellent interactive resource that really helps IWBs reach their potential in the classroom. Why? To me, IWBs are at their most effective when explored and driven by students directly. I could easily see a child running http://www.littleanimation4kids.com/ on an IWB, either by themselves or in a small group, taking turns exploring the content as if it were a gigantic touch screen (which it is). Here’s the “main menu:”
http://www.drezac.com/2010/05/ten-interactive-white-board-web-20.html
10 Web 2.0 tools that work handily with IWBs.
from Langwitches Blog by Langwitches
SMARTBoards and Battleship Activities from Quiafrom Teachers Love SMART Boards by James Hollis
http://www.quia.com/shared/
I believe we'll be seeing a lot more sites like Quia that allow teachers to develop their own interactive activities for the classroom. I was experimenting with some interactive Battleship games on Quia created by teachers and shared on the Quia site for everyone to use. The Battleship games work great on the SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard.
To find a Battleship game to play from the shared resources section of Quia, all I did was choose a subject area and then I chose Battleship from the Activity Type search field. You can also enter in keywords, sub-categories, etc. to help narrow things down a bit, but your search results may come back empty. After I did my search, I simply scrolled through my list until I found something relevant.
The Battleship game is simple. You play against the computer and you take turns trying to find the ships on the game board. If you hit one of the computer's ships, you'll need to answer a question by choosing the correct answer from the list provided. If you are right, you get a hit. If you are wrong, you'll need to try again on your next turn.
I can think of a number of different ways a teacher could use this review activity in the classroom. These activities are also flash-based so you can use the Flash Game Maximizer add-on in Firefox to make the activity as large as possible on the SMART Board.
You can subscribe to Quia to access additional resources and create your own interactive games, however, you don't need to subscribe to access the shared resource library. Quia has a 30 day free trial if you're interested in checking out all the resources.
SMARTBoard Game Resourcesfrom Teachers Love SMART Boards by James Hollis
http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/games_for_smart_boards/
It's getting close to the end of the year for many teachers and sometimes it can be a challenge keeping students occupied in a creative manner.
If you're looking for some interactive games you can use with your SMART Board to help with the last 10 minutes of a class period, you may want to scroll through the "Games" category here on Teachers Love SMART Boards. I'm sure you'll find something fun for your students.
http://www.carstensstudios.com/mathdoodles/connectsums.html
SMARTBoard and Some Sum Fun
from Teachers Love SMART Boards by James Hollis
The game is very simple. Students are presented with a target number and they have to select the correct combination of numbers that add up to the target number.
The game has options for using coins, digits, or dice when displaying the numbers and you can play using a timer or a countdown. It's really amazing how well this simple game can improve your ability to count change using coins. Since you're working against a timer, it challenges you to find the best combination to use in order to improve your time. This game is addicting and it definitely helps students recognize summation combinations.
http://www.eflnet.com/
The activities are mostly multiple-choice review questions that provide instant audio and visual feedback although some activities require keyboard input. Most of the review activities in each topic area go from beginner to advanced and most activity groups contain 10 questions.
Smartboards and Custom Venn Diagrams for Geometry
from Teachers Love SMART Boards by James Hollis
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=34
One of the best critical thinking activities is using a Venn Diagram to organize relationships. However, it can be a challenge for teachers to create custom Venn Diagrams for students to use. With the Shape Sorter Venn Diagram activity, teachers can build their own Venn Diagrams to explore relationships between various geometric objects.
To use the application, select two rules from the pre-defined drop down list of rules. Next, drag the shapes from above into the blue work area. You can use the check button to automatically check whether the shapes are contained in the correct location of the Venn Diagram.
SMARTBoard and Spin & Spellfrom Teachers Love SMART Boards by James Hollis
http://www.spinandspell.com/
The interactive spelling site called Spin & Spell is an incredibly engaging spelling activity that works great on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard. It can be used in any of the primary grades to enhance the curriculum.
You begin using Spin & Spell by clicking on one of the five categories: What We Wear, What We Eat, How We Get There, The Animal Kingdom, and In And Around Home. Each category contains a page containing images of various objects relating to that category.
Students can select one of the pictures to spell or they can have Spin & Spell choose a word for them. To spell the word, students touch on the correct letter in the wheel. Each time students select a letter, the game will say the letter out loud. To check if the word is spelled correctly, students touch the "Submit" button. The game will also show the correct spelling and the corresponding picture when students touch on the "Show Me The Word" button.
http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/phonics/phonics_main.htm
Learn to sound out and spell words as you move letters around and build small words into big words by replacing letters and reshuffling letters. (Primary)
from Teachers Love SMART Boards by James Hollis
http://www.cosketch.com/ is a free service that allows you to create online sketches and share them with other people, in real time.
from Educational Technology Guy by Dave
http://polyvision.wikispaces.com/
Lots of websites and resources!
http://listhings.com/
from Free Technology for Teachers by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)
Listhings provides user with an online space to write notes, store notes, and sort notes. Listhings also gives users the option to share their sticky noteboards with others via email invitation. The one thing that makes Listhings different from some of its competitors is that users can create more than one page of notes in the same account. Listhings users can choose to share one sticky noteboard while keeping another sticky noteboard private.
http://harveyshomepage.com/Harveys_Homepage/Welcome.html
Harvey's Homepage features great how-to lessons for teachers as well as other interactive whiteboard materials that teachers can access. Harvey's Homepage is the work of retired math teacher and James Madison University instructor Harvey Almarode.
http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/percent/
Mission Magnetite from PBS Kids Go Cyberchase. This activity is actually categorized as a lesson on percents but I like using the resource when learning about fractions since it represents fractions as both a decimal and as an image. The lesson is simple enough to use and can be used in a myriad of ways by the classroom teacher to help students recognize fractional relationships.
http://www.learningmedia.co.nz/staticactivities/online_activities/flitting_with_fractions/
Flitting With Fractions from Learning Media of New Zealand. It's a wonderfully engaging activity that challenges students to select all the butterflies that have a given attribute and place them into a jar. They then have to provide the fractional value of the number of butterflies that are in the jar. Once again, it's a very simple activity but it's very effective.
http://www.csd.k12.nh.us/~lstua/circle%20fractions.swf
The Circle Fraction tool allows the user to divide a circle into 1-12 sections and then select how many sections are highlighted by touching on the section. I actually use this site a lot since you can easily change colors of the sections and you can control the number of sections. It's a great tool for comparing fractions that have different denominators. I highly recommend using the screen capture tool in Notebook to capture various fractional images.
http://www.csd.k12.nh.us/~lstua/fractions.swf
The Rectangle Fraction tool lets you manipulate various rectangles of the same size to see how they compare to each other when divided into different number of sections. This is a fantastic tool to help students visualize how fractions with different denominators relate to each other.
http://www.triptico.co.uk/resources/wordMagnets/WordMagnets.html
from Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom by Kathleen McGeady
Word magnets is a tool that allows you to paste in some text and then change the text into word tiles like fridge magnets that you can drag and rearrange.
There are background proformas you can use to arrange the magnets, like Venn diagrams, tables, A-Z, numeric lists etc.
http://dabbleboard.com/
http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/
The TES Connect site is a social online network for teachers created by one of the largest educational publishers in the United Kingdom (TSL Education Ltd). Just recently, they acquired the resources from iboard and made them available free of charge. While they are included on the TES Connect website, you need to create an account first. To by-pass this step, you can go directly to the iboard Interactive Resources iboard player and select resources on the right side of the page. These activities are absolutely fantastic and they allow you to copy the activity links and save them in your bookmarks, blogs, or web pages.
http://www.2learn.ca/ Lots of resources!
http://www.e-learningforkids.org/
http://www.learnalberta.ca/Search.aspx?lang=en
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/bitesize/
http://teacher.scholastic.com/whiteboards/languagearts.htm
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/index.php
The Science NetLinks website is an amazing website for Science teachers providing them with lessons covering a wide variety of topics and grade levels. The website is very easy to use and they even provide learning benchmarks for the lessons. The really great thing about these lessons is the interactive resources that are contained in each lesson plan
http://www.freezeray.com/biology.htm
http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/biology.html
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/giannini/index.htm
http://www.bubbabrain.com/
http://www.learnyourtables.co.uk/
Learn Your Tables is a flash-based resource that helps students learn their multiplication facts. It provides three types of resources: Drag and Drop, Enter the Answer, and Assessment. You can even select a specific table or you can mix it up and have it provide facts from the 1s through 10s table.
