Showing posts with label Promethean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Promethean. Show all posts

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Science Websites from Carolyn


     First I have to say that I love AmazingClassroom.com and have been super excited that Kelly has also started a blog to go along with it.  I use her resources all the time – in fact I’m busy cutting out some of her new stuff to use for centers this year!    Thanks Kelly!  

I’m very honored and excited to be asked to write a post for the blog – hopefully it will be well-received so I’ll be asked to write more!  So before my post, a little about me…. I have been teaching for 10 years and have taught 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades (with some K summer school teaching thrown in as well).  After teaching 4th grade for 5 years, I’m moving back up to 5thgrade – it should be interesting!  I have a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and just finished my master’s degree in educational technology last December.  

I love using technology in the classroom, so am very lucky to have a Promethean board as well as ActivExpressions and an ActiView document camera.  Both my students and I love using these tools to help make learning fun.  I’m also a Promethean-certified trainer for my school district and have presented at numerous local, state and even national conferences.   In fact, I attended/presented at ISTE this summer with Kelly and have come back with many new ideas that I’m excited to try this year in my classroom!  Yea for technology!

And now enough about me and on to the post!

As I’m writing this, it is July 27th– yikes!  Hard to believe it will be August in a few days which means the start of school is just around the corner.  That being said, I’ve been starting to think about the upcoming year as I’m sure all the other teachers out there are doing.  As I’m sure most of you have figured out long ago, the best type of learning is that in which students don’t even realize they are learning.  Games are a great way to accomplish that.  I LOVE using the Lakeshore Learning Games that Kelly has written about in earlier blog posts; however they don’t have a huge selection of games for science which is what I have taught for the last 5 years.  (My school/grade level has decided to departmentalize so that I teach science for several classes as well as reading for my homeroom class.)  Therefore, I’ve gone looking online and found some sites with fun science games that can be used in a variety of ways – whole class as topic intro or review, small group during center time or individually when students finish work.  I’m going to share two of my favorite of these sites.  

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/index.html
     This is the index page for the Sheppard Software site.  As you will see when you navigate there, it contains games for a wide variety of subjects, not just science.  However, I have used primarily the ones in the Kid’s Corner section.  My favorites in the section are the ones relating to food chains.  There are some where students have to decide what part of the food chain a particular organism would fit in, others where students have to decide what type of consumer an organism is, as well as ones in which students have to put the organisms into the correct order to make an accurate food chain.  They are perfect for whole class lessons or individual review/practice.  During my food chains unit I always have students asking to play these games, so I make sure to put them on my AmazingClassroom.com science page so students/parents can access them at home.


http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/gamesactivities.html
     This website, Science Kids, has a section specifically for games.  The games are divided into living things, physical processes, solids/liquids/gases, math games, and detective science.  Each section has several games related to various topics of study.  All of the games could be done individually because the game includes directions to help guide students.  The detective science section is very cool because it acts as more of a video game in which the students have a science challenge that they need to solve.  It is a great resource that I often link to on my AmazingClassroom.com website for parents to see what we are doing in class and in case students want to play at home.

     I hope that you will be able to use these two science resources!  I would love to hear your thoughts on them or others that you use in your classroom (leave a comment below).  I’m always looking for new things to add to my “teacher toolbox”!  Good luck with the beginning of your school year!




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20 Curvy Frames

This clip art resource pack contains 20 curvy frames in bright colors, mixed colors, gingham, and polka-dot designs. These frames can be used either portrait or landscape. These are high quality png images which means they don't have a white background around them. They are available in resource pack, gallery pack, or zipped format. These curvy frames will install in shared resources/resource packs/Curvy Frames.  Members, log in to your AmazingClassroom account, go to whiteboard resources, and then resource packs. Enjoy!

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Just Added a New Flipchart Lesson - 100's Chart Activities

Your students will be sure to know their numbers to 120 with this 100's Chart Activities Flipchart Lesson from Patty Dod! This lesson features tons of interaction with the board. Students get to play hundred's chart games, guess mystery numbers, solve puzzles, and vote for formative or summative assessment. Page notes are included to guide you through the lesson. This flipchart is over 30 pages! Enjoy! 

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Just Added - Rhyming Words Flipchart Lesson

Your students will be sure to write, and identify words that rhyme with this highly interactive Promethean flipchart lesson from Patty Dod! This lesson incorporates tons of interaction with the board, including rhyming activities, containers, voting, and interactive games from the web! This flipchart was designed and best suited for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st grades.  This flipchart is about 20 pages in length! Enjoy! 

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Just Added a New Flipchart Lesson - "Learn Your Sight Words!"

     Your students will be sure to learn their sight words with this adorable, fun, and interactive flipchart lesson from our new teacher author, Patty Dod! Your students will use magic revealers to find hidden words, watch a video, and play interactive games to learn those necessary sight words needed to develop reading fluency. Page notes are included within the flipchart to help guide you in your reading instruction. 
MEMBERS CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LESSON!

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How to Install Resource Packs in ActivInspire Tutorial

I have had many questions as to how to install resource packs in Promethean's ActivInspire software.  Click on the video below and I will show you how.  Stop and start the video as needed to try installing them on your own.  I ALWAYS press stop indexing when I install my resource packs.  This is for searching purposes only, so before I search for something I am going to want to re index.  It certainly isn't necessary after each resource pack that you install.    The larger your resource library is, the longer it takes to re index.  I usually bake some cookies while I wait! 


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Just Added - Scoreboards and Counters

This resource pack contains 20 different scoreboards and counters for your flipchart lessons. Some of the scoreboards increase by 1 point, 5 points, and 100 points for Jeopardy style games. The counters all differ. Some count up by 5's, 10's, and multiples of 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. They are designed to be used at their current size when pulled out of your resource library. They will install in shared resources/Scoreboards and counters.  Log in to your AmazingClassroom account, go to whiteboard resources, and then resource packs to download!  Enjoy!

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Just Added - Landforms Flipchart Lesson

This flipchart lesson has everything you need to teach landforms to your students. It includes over 50 pages of interactivity, along with printable pdfs for formative assessment, reinforcement, and extra practice. Tons of voting along with graphic organizers, containers, games, and online resources. Make sure to read the page notes included by going to your notes browser. Directions are given on each page as how to best utilize the resources.

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Anyone Going to ISTE This Year?


Well, time is creeping up and I'll be in San Diego before I know it.  I am very excited since this will be my first year attending ISTE!  I am also proud to be presenting a session with three of my Hazelwood colleagues on Increasing Student Engagement in an ActivClassroom!  If you happen to be going, stop by and see us!  During the conference I will blog about all of the fun stuff I am learning to share it with you, so you can implement it this upcoming year if you choose!

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Glittery Letters Clip Art Pack

This resource pack features glittery letters in a variety of bright glittery colors. There are 26 capital letters and over 30 lowercase letters. All of the lowercase vowels have about three letters each in different colors for variety. There are also a couple of glittery backgrounds included in this set along with numbers 1-10. This resource pack will install in shared resources/my letters/glittery letters. It's also available in Smart Gallery Pack format and in a zip file format full of 80 transparent png images. Enjoy!

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Just Added - Bright Letters Alphabet Clipart Resource Pack

This resource pack includes all alphabet capital and lowercase letters in a bright, colorful style. These will be sure to add tons of color to your flipchart lessons. Set them as drag a copy within your flipchart page to create a spelling activity or word work center for your students. This resource pack will install in shared resources/my letters/bright letters. Enjoy!

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Just Added - Positive Sounds 2 Resource Pack

This resource pack contains 23 positive sounds (wav files) for your flipchart lessons. From marvelous, to fantastic, to fabulous, and right on man, these sound effects will surely add fun to your flipchart lesson activities. These sounds will install in shared resources/positive sounds 2. Enjoy!

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Just Added - Owl Backgrounds

Just Added - 20 Owl Backgrounds for all of your interactive whiteboard lessons.  These are available for download in Promethean Resource Pack format, Smart Gallery Pack Format, and a zip file of transparent png background images (no white background around them.)  Enjoy!

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Just Added - "Beginning Addition" Promethean Flipchart Lesson

This flipchart will introduce your students to the concept of addition. They will learn how to add numbers under twenty to one another. The students have multiple opportunities to interact with this flipchart lesson. There are many container activities, links to interactive addition games, magic revealer pages, and multiple voting opportunities to use as formative assessment. This flipchart is 35 pages in length. Enjoy!

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Just Added - Pastel Alphabet and Numbers Clip Art Set

This clip art set  contains 26 capital and lowercase letters in cute pastel patterns (some of the patterns are licensed through Crazy4Monograms). Also featured in this set are the numbers 1-10, a plus sign, subtraction sign, and an equal sign to create math problems or use in your math flipchart lessons.  These images are high quality png images (no white background around them) - 65 images in all. Enjoy!

Purchase on Teacher's Notebook for $4.00 or join AmazingClassroom.com for only $29.95 a year and download over 200 of my resources (reading and math centers, clip art packs, worksheets, newsletters, lessons, behavior reports, and more!)

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How to Create Containers in ActivInspire

Creating containers in your lessons is a great way to make your flipcharts interactive.  With containers, students are able to get immediate feedback as to whether an answer is correct, by the container playing a positive sound.  Students also know their choice/answer isn’t correct, when the container won’t allow an object to be placed in it.  Containers can be challenging to make; however, the more practice and the more creating of containers that you do, the better you will become, and the easier containers will be to create.  


Here are the steps to start making containers:
Below I will begin by making containers for nouns and adjectives.  You can choose whatever subject fits your next lesson the best and adapt this to suit your needs.  Here are the steps.
1. Containers can be an image or a shape.  I usually use the shape tool and create rectangles like these.   I have also given each one a title by creating a text box within them.   I typed nouns on one rectangle and adjectives on the other rectangle.  See picture below.
2. Now, I am going to type several nouns and adjectives on my flipchart page, on the outsides of my boxes.  These are the words that students will have to sort, or place in the boxes.  This will give me a formative look at how well the students can differentiate between these two words.  See the pic on the next page to look at the nouns and adjectives that I typed.  
3.  Next, we have to give each of our words a name (keyword)
so the box can identify it. To do this, go to your browser (control b or view browsers) and click on the white piece of paper (property browser).  Click on one of your words.  Click on the three dots (the browser button) next to the keyword box.   Click add.  Type in either noun or adjective depending on your word.  Then type ok.  In the keyword box, you should now have the word that you just typed.  See pic below:

 
4.  Do this with all of your words.  Click on each word individually, in your property browser click the 3 dots (browser button), click add, type noun or adjective, click ok.  Stop when all of your words outside the boxes have been named.  It’s time for the next step.

5. Now, we get to assign the actual containers (green rectangles in this case.)  Click on one of the rectangles.  I am going to start with my nouns rectangle.  Then, go to the same property browser (control b or view browsers, click on the white piece of paper.)  Scroll down until you see the word containers.  If it’s blue and not open, click the + sign and the container properties will open up.  If this doesn’t happen, make sure you have one of your rectangles selected or clicked.  The pic below shows what your containers property box should look like before you have done anything to it.  

Here are the steps to setting the container. 
Under can contain - click the arrow down to keywords (we are selecting keywords because we gave each of our text a keyword earlier on.)  Remember, the keywords are the words that will determine what our containers or rectangles will accept.  Skip the contain object box.  Click on the browser button (...) next to contain words.  if you have the nouns rectangle clicked, type noun.  If you have the adjectives rectangle clicked type adjective.  The keywords are case sensitive so it’s very important what keywords you gave your text.   If you don’t remember, just click on one of your words and look at the keyword at the top to check. 
For contain rule, leave it set as completely contained.  For reward sound, you can not have a sound and leave it false, but that’s not very fun....lol, so I usually click true.  This gives the students immediate positive feedback.  Next to reward sound locations, click on the browser button (...)
and search for a sound file on your computer.  Leave the last box return if not contained set to false. 
Repeat these steps with the adjective container.  Make sure that next to the contain word section your type adjective.  This is what your container properties box should look like with the information of the noun rectangle container filled out.  See pic below:

 

Now for the last step. 
Click on each of your words.  Make sure your property browser is open and the container properties are showing.  The only thing you are going to click for each of these words is return if not contained.  You are going to click on the arrow and move down to true.  Doing this for each of your words will make them pop back, or spring back to their original location if they are not correct, or not accepted by your containers.  SAVE YOUR FLIPCHART at this point before trying your containers.  Now, they should work.  If they aren’t working, make sure you are in presentation mode. (This is the blue snowflake in the top, right hand corner of your Inspire program.)  if it’s red, that is design mode and the containers will not work in this mode. 
Some reminders:  The rectangles (containers) won’t accept anything bigger than they are, so make sure your text is able to fit within each of the boxes.  I hope this helps make container making easier.  Enjoy!

Please follow my blog so you don't miss out on any ActivInspire tips or tricks along with tons of educational freebies for your classroom.  After following my blog, click on the link below to download this in a handout form!  Enjoy!
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF VERSION OF "HOW TO CREATE CONTAINERS."






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