SMART Board Goodies A Resource Blog by Amber Coggin 

This is a great advent calendar called Santa’s Home from http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk. It is from 2007, but it works just fine for any year. Click on each day to see what goes on in Santa’s Home before Christmas! This would work great for PreK-2nd grade, or even older depending on the class.

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology has many K-12 interactive learning objects for various math and science topics. Some of the topics include the Water Cycle (seen below), Plant Reproduction, and Multiplying Decimals. Most of the learning objects contain student and teacher resources, as well as animations and quizzes on the topic. These all work great on the SMART Board! To find the complete list, I simply searched “learning object” on their website.

ClassTools.net offers free templates and generators that can be used to create resources for the classroom.  Resources made on ClassTools.net can be saved as a web page or embedded into a blog. Below is the Burger Diagram that can be used in planning a writing assignment or essay. From the site:

A burger diagram is a simple essay planning tool. Students make basic notes covering their introduction, three main sections, and a conclusion. It is a useful way of ensuring that students think about structuring their essays in a logical format.

Tip for SMART Board use: It may be a bit time consuming if you use the Notebook on-screen keyboard to type in the information for the diagram. I recommend filling in the information ahead of time, then saving or embedding it. You could then use the screenshade and reveal each section as you go along.

Don’t forget to check out all the other templates as well, such as the Random Name Picker and Timeline Creator.

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great holiday. I know I did! Here is something to start off your Monday. Mightybook.com is one of my favorite sites for PreK-1st grade children. It is a subscription based website, but there are some activities offered for free. On Mightybook.com, children can listen to music, read e-books, put together puzzles, listen to jokes, and more. Most of these activities work well on the SMART Board. Check them out! Here is a preview of the Metamorphosis story song.