Mrs. Blossom's Blog

Fun with the Periodic Table

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:00:26 +0000

I have a friend who teaches high school science. She likes the periodic table that is found in the Gallery. (Search for periodic and look in the interactive and multimedia folder.) Yes, you can find periodic tables online but in her school, internet is slow so science sites are not a good alternative.

Click on each element to read about the properties. Find the metals (I didn’t realize there were so many of these!). Check out the groups. The students will have fun with the Find the Elements game.

For those of you who want to find a more sophisticated table, make a link to this one on a Notebook page. www.ptable.com

Happy Learning!

Sound Advice

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:00:57 +0000

I like to use some of the pictures that include sound but the speaker icon is too small and it is also distracting. Therefore I choose to make the object create the sound.

Try getting one of the sound images from the Gallery.

Select it and click on the drop down menu.

Choose sound.

Change the option from corner icon to object.

Click on Attach Sound.

You now have a larger surface that produces sound and children can experience cause and effect. You might get them working on which thing makes sound!

Happy Learning!

Spelling Fun with Fridge Magnets

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:00:47 +0000

We have been having a lot of fun with the fridge magnets activity that is found in SMART Notebook. Search for fridge in the Gallery and look in the Interactive and Multimedia folder.

We put the screen in dual page mode. One student creates a word by dragging the letters onto the playing surface and then whoever else is playing, tries to write as many words as they can in two minutes. They can even check the spelling by recognizing the words as text and looking to see if there is a wiggly red line under the letters. If there is, they can correct it by right clicking on the word.

This makes a fun learning activity center in our classroom!

Happy Learning!

Where are you Romeo?

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:00:17 +0000

After reading part of Romeo and Juliet , the students created a scene from the novel on a Notebook page. They made sure everything was locked down and then they added some characters that could move freely. In their own words they narrated the characters parts (Lapel mics were useful for this aspect.) while they moved their characters onscreen. They were having so much fun that getting them to stop laughing was difficult in the beginning!

This was all recorded with SMART Recorder which captured the scenes, movements and the voices. After recording, the file was saved as a .avi although it could have been a .wmv file (Macs create Quick Time files). Either could be posted to internet for parents to watch.

To use SMART Recorder, first ensure that the blue icon with the white circle is seen in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen.

If it isn’t, do the following:

For Windows

Click on Start
Click on Programs
Click on SMART Technologies
Click on SMART Board Tools

For Mac

Click on the Finder
Click on Applications
Click on SMART Technologies
Click on Board Tools

Both Mac and Windows offer different options that you can check out, but these simple instructions will work well.

In Windows, click on the blue icon in the system tray Click on SMART recorder

Press the red button and record your actions and voice.
Press the square button and save wherever you choose.

On a Mac, click the blue icon in the dock.

Click recorder in the drop down menu under Open in the top menu.
Click the red button once or twice to begin recording the whole screen.
Click the grey, square button to stop recording.
By default this saves to your movie folder.

Happy Learning!

What’s the Difference?

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:00:03 +0000

I often take two pictures of rather similar things. For instance, I will go outside and take a picture of a small white car and a large black truck. We put both pictures on one page of SMART Notebook. Then we quickly make a T chart that allows the students to write down all the things that are similar and all that are different. Sometimes they can be really creative with this exercise and it causes them to be quite analytical.

I can clone the pages so that different students have new pages to work on and I can switch it up by having different pictures on each page. (To clone a page, click on the thumbnail of a page and you will see ‘clone page’.)

Happy Learning!

Spelling Practice

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:00:30 +0000

Some students like to work with others to practice spelling words. We put lots of pictures on the Notebook page. Then we quickly record the names of the pictures using the SMART Notebook record feature (Check out the drop down menu for each object you click on and you will see the word Sound.) Under each picture we put the number of dashes that corresponds with the number of letters in the word. I like to clone the page a number of times so that various students can work on the same activity without erasing other peoples’ work.

The students click on the picture, listen to the word being spoken and print the word under the picture. I encourage them to sign their names when they are done, save the file and then go to the next page so the activity is ready for someone else. If I put a list of student names up beside the SMART Board, they can quietly go and get the next person on that list. Later I can go back and look at the file to see how well the students are spelling.

Alternately, I can write the words and have the students draw the pictures.

Happy Learning!

Our Class Trip Follow-Up

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:00:43 +0000

After we go on class trips, we have a lot of photographs. Putting them into SMART Notebook gives us many opportunities for language development. Just open Notebook and then click on Insert in the top menu. Choose Picture file. We used to worry about the pictures being too big but now the program will ask if you want to optimize the graphic and it will adjust the picture to fit the screen. Even so, I like to make it a bit smaller so that there is room for text under the picture.

Working together on each page of Notebook, we put a sentence that describes the photograph so it reminds us of each part of our trip. We practice reading it and sometimes we will print it out so that students can take turns reading it to others. The older students have worked on our presentations too! They help the younger students use the recorder in Notebook 11 to read each page so that there is a permanent audio book for anyone to look at and listen to.

Happy Learning!

Where are you going, Little Red Riding Hood?

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:00:46 +0000

It is fun to compare students’ thoughts about the characters of stories we have read in class. We select speech balloons from the shape tool and add them to graphics on the screen so that students can write in the conversation that they are having.

Sometimes we will open the page sorter, click on the thumbnail and clone the page a number of times so that each student can create their own conversation.

Students work at this during the day while others are working at their seats or at centers. At the end of the day, when we have all finished, it is fun to read the conversations together. We can even add in ‘the moral of the story’, as in the example shown, where we had to discuss talking to strangers.

By the way, do you know the origin of Red Riding Hood. Check this out for some startling suggestions! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood

Happy Learning!

Tessellations

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:48 +0000

Here is a quick way to create a file. We were working with tessellations.

(Tessellation is the process of creating a two-dimensional plane using the repetition of a geometric shape with no overlaps and no gaps.)

Three coloured shapes were added to the SMART Board and infinitely cloned. The students had to make patterns with no overlaps and no gaps. Everyones had to look different. Afterwards we viewed quilts to see various kinds of tessellations and then we visited MC Escher’s website to see his fantasy artwork. (http://www.mcescher.com/Biography/biography.htm)

Happy Learning!

Eclectic Eggs for Easter

Mrs. Blossom — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:00:12 +0000

Kids love the new crayon in SMART Notebook 11 and they can use it in the next activity. On the SMART Board, I draw several egg shapes using the shape tool. I clone the pages so that there are several pages to work with. The students know that they are going to decorate them but they have to make up the rules. On slips of paper, they have to write sentences that describe how to decorate each egg. An example is: ‘Use three lines. Use two colours. Use six identical squares.’ After I check them for spelling, (I don’t want students to get used to seeing words spelled incorrectly.) we fold up the slips of paper and put them into a jar. When the student goes up to decorate an egg, he takes a slip of paper, chooses an egg and decorates accordingly. They can sign their eggs if they want to. Sometimes afterwards, we will look at the eggs and the students have to figure out what the rule was.

Happy Learning!