Teacher Led Interactive Whiteboard

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Teacher Led Interactive Whiteboard2537 views

What it is: Teacher Led IWB is a collection of resources for use with an interactive whiteboard.  This is an outstanding collection of 46 math tools and games, 3 geography maps and map makers, 6 English tools and games, and two multipurpose games.  The collection is visually appealing and helps teach key concepts visually in each content area.  There are too many great resources to go in depth here, I recommend heading over to Teacher Led IWB and taking a look right now!

How to integrate Teacher Led IWB into the classroom:  This collection is VERY impressive.  The tools and games are perfect for whole class instruction and practice in math, geography, language arts, and creating custom activities for other subjects.  Most of the tools are designed for the elementary classroom but there are some that can be used in middle school as well.  

 

Tips: If you have an interactive whiteboard, go to Teacher Led now and check out these awesome resources!  

 

 

Leave a comment and tell us which of the Teacher Led resources you have used in your classroom.

The Little Animals Activity Centre

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The Little Animals Activity Centre3555 views

 

 

What it is: The Little Animals Activity Centre has several activities for kindergarten through second grade including read along stories, math practice, and music games. The read along stories are wonderful for following auditory directions.

How to integrate The Little Animals Activity Centre into your curriculum: Use The Little Animals Activity Centre to reinforce classroom learning. It offers read along interactive stories that invite students to follow auditory directions. The math section is great addition, and subtraction practice. Students can have fun with words and practice end sounds, first sounds, and rhymes. These are great little games and activities for practice. This site is also wonderful for teaching students how to use and manipulate the computer mouse.

Tips: Click on the teachers page for activity overviews, lesson plans, and printable worksheets.

 

 

Tools for Educators

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Tools for Educators2550 views

 

What it is:   Tools for Educators is an awesome site, so awesome that I am surprised I haven’t run across it sooner!  Tools for educators offers templates for teachers to create their own board games, word searches, dice, cross word maker, bingo cards, domino maker, spelling and reading worksheets, handwriting worksheets, certificate maker, vocabulary handouts, listening test worksheets, and word bank worksheet.  All templates are extremely customizable, fast and easy to use.  And did I mention it is all free?!

 

How to integrate Tools for Educators into the classroom:  Tools for Educators is obviously a great site to use to customize worksheets, games, etc. based on your classroom curriculum.  Even though the site is geared toward educator use, I have had students use it last week to create their own custom board games, dice, and dominoes.  The students loved creating games, rules, and question cards for their games (they made these with a Pages template I created).  We have a parent day where families can come and play the games the students have created.  So much fun!  Definitely check out this site, I know you will be inspired to create something wonderful!

 

Tips:   There are a lot of Google ads along the right side of the screen.  When using with students, use the opportunity to teach them about web advertisements.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Tools for Educators in your classroom.

Treasures MacMillan McGraw Hill Supplement

Kelly Tenkely15 Comments on Treasures MacMillan McGraw Hill Supplement5415 views

I am not a fan of canned curriculum.  It has some benefits and is relatively easy to teach, but there is a lack of differentiation for different learners and the activities for practice are often shallow.  Treasures has some fun stories and themes but they are really lacking in their activities to practice the essential learning.  The activities are often shallow and don’t change from first grade to fifth grade.  The same copy from the dictionary activity is suggested for learning vocabulary for every unit in every grade level.  I created the Treasures supplement as a way to help teachers provide students with multiple ways of practicing the essential learnings.  I just finished the supplement for unit 1.  This is the supplement for first through fifth grade.

Treasures Reading Supplement

Kelly Tenkely26 Comments on Treasures Reading Supplement5639 views

What it is: We use the Treasures Reading curriculum (Macmillan McGraw Hill) at the school where I teach.  Although there are things I like about this curriculum, one thing that is in need of improvement are the activities provided for students to practice the skills that they are learning.  The activities don’t change from 1st-5th grade, are very repetitive, and do not encourage any sort of deeper thinking skills.  In an attempt to remedy this for our students, I went through each unit for 1st through 5th grade and pulled out the essential learning components.  I found activities that were engaging and required some deeper thinking to supplement what was currently in the curriculum.  As I worked to supplement the activities, I looked for a few things: 1. The activity could be completed with the whole class, using an interactive whiteboard or projector, or could be completed as a computer center (for the classroom with 2 or 3 computers).  2. The activities had to meet and reinforce the essential learning. 3. The activities had to be more engaging than what was already suggested.


How to integrate Treasures Reading Supplement into the classroom: These guides are meant to be a supplement for the Treasures Reading Curriculum.  They are designed to offer some extra ideas for helping students to practice and solidify learning.  You will find a few activities that are meant for offline use such as a whole class bingo game or partner matching games.  You will also notice some suggestions for Promethean activities.  I created some supplemental flipcharts for our teachers to use that I am happy to share if you can use them. (I hope to have these up on Promethean Planet soon).   Many of these activities can be completed as a center activity in the classroom.  We don’t always have access to a computer lab of computers.  In the classroom with a few computers, set up a weekly rotation so that your students can complete some of the online activities.  Some of the games and activities are also appropriate for whole class participation.

In my classroom, I like to play games with my students.  I will often split students into teams where the teams will take turns working through a game.   Students love the extra layer of competition being timed.

In my reading classroom, I  had literacy groups that I met with every day.  Each day I met with a new group (those students who were in need of remedial reading met each day of the week).  During literacy group time, the group that I was working with read the story for the week, learned and practiced key essential learning together (phonics, grammar, vocabulary) , and worked on building comprehension strategies.  While I worked with my smaller literacy groups, the rest of the class  worked through independent literacy centers.  At the beginning of the week I explained all of the centers for the week.  Because my classroom had limited space, I put my centers into colored tubs that rotated around the classroom.  Each day a small group of students received a center tub.  The tub has all of the necessary supplies and directions for that center.  One of my centers always involved the classroom computers.  Sometimes the centers were inquiry based, sometimes games, and sometimes additional reading practice.  Every week, each student completed each center activity.  In the meantime, I was able to work one on one with my literacy groups.  This worked really well in my classroom and technology made it easy for students to work at their own level independently.

The guides are below in ebook format using Issuu, they have been separated by grade.  Even if you don’t teach the Treasures Curriculum, everything has been arranged by the learning focus, these overlap in most curricula.  You may find some great activities that meet your classroom need here:


First Grade:


Second Grade:

Third Grade:

Fourth Grade:

Fifth Grade:


*Note: The fourth and fifth grade spelling lists on Spelling City do not come from the Treasures curriculum.  The fourth grade uses Houghton Mifflin and the fifth grade has generated their own lists.

For a list of all of my publications check out my library on Issuu.


Leave a comment and share how you are using the Treasures Reading Supplement in your classroom.

UDL Book Builder

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on UDL Book Builder3849 views

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What it is: UDL Book Builder is a site where you can create your own interactive digital stories.  The books have built in coaches that can support diverse learning needs.  The coaches direct student learning even when students are working independently.  The digital books can include text, images, audio, glossary terms (that are linked within the story), and coaches that can provide hints, prompts, and modeling.  The published books can be viewed online, downloaded to a computer, saved to a CD, or shared with others in the UDL library.  Both teachers and students can use the UDL Book Builder to create interactive digital stories.

How to integrate UDL Book Builder into the classroom: Use the UDL Book Builder to create interactive stories for your students that meet their specific learning needs.  Include students and familiar locations in your stories to boost reading motivation.  Students love starring in their own stories.  As you are creating a book in the Book Builder, be sure to devleop the coaches within the book.  The coaches can offer reading hints, strategies, and model good reading.  Start a school library of teacher created digital books.  As the digital library is devleoped, be sure to note which reading skills are being emphasized so that other teachers can quickly sort through books that will match their students learning needs and interests.  Students can also create digital books from their writing.  The writing should be ready to publish (correct spelling, grammar, etc.).  These stories can easily be shared online with other students in class, in the school, and with pen pals.  UDL Book Builder would be a great tool for creating stories as a class using the interactive whiteboard.

Tips: The UDL Book Builder site has a great section with tips for authors and illustrators using the Builder.  These tips are helpful for any adults creating a book, but are also worth sharing with students using the tool.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using UDL Book Builder  in your classroom.

Unitag: Custom QR Code Generator

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Unitag: Custom QR Code Generator9183 views

What it is: QR codes are becoming more and more prevalent in education and everywhere else (advertisements, TV, your bag of chips, soda, etc.).  These codes are easy to make and can lead to some fun learning opportunities.  Unitag is a QR code generator that lets you customize the look of the QR code.  First, choose a type of QR code to generate.  This can be a weblink, text, a business card, an email, a geolocation, a text message, a phone number, a calendar date, a wifi network, or a mobile page.  Next, you can customize the QR code with pre-made templates, personalized color palette, a special look, a logo or picture, “eye” colors, and more.  When you are finished, the QR code can be downloaded or shared on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest.  This process could take seconds (it is SO fast to create) or several minutes depending on how fancy you like to get with your customizations.

How to integrate Unitag into the classroom: So, what in the heck can you use those codes for?  A lot!  Use Unitag to create customized codes for back to school night; instead of sending parents with stacks of papers, offer a QR code by the door where they can snap a picture that takes them to your expectations/important dates/syllabus/special projects.  Include QR codes next to parent teacher conference signups so that parents can instantly upload the date to the calendar on their phone.  A QR code linked to your business card helps parents and students know what office hours you keep and how to keep in touch.

For older students (who have a phone) offer QR codes to help them remember important dates, homework, special projects, etc.  This could be posted next to the door so that on their way in or out they can instantly snap a picture and have all of the upcoming assignments in their calendar.

QR codes can be used by students to create choose your own adventure type stories.  The codes can link to different twists and turns within the story.  This would be fantastic for student created fiction but could also make a really cool book report.  Students could write one version summarizing the story as it was, a QR code could lead to an alternate ending that they created themselves.

When studying history, QR codes could be used to show different angles of the same event, different outcomes depending on population…and how cool would it be if those QR codes were included on a map where the events took place?!  Students can link the QR codes to different views of the same event.  For example, one from the viewpoint of explorer Christopher Columbus and another from the point of view of Native Americans.  A QR code classroom timeline would also be very neat.  Students can create reports/content that is linked to a QR code that gets placed on a giant timeline.  Customize the code with images that are related to the event or colors that represent the event in some way.

Create a bulletin board with a map of the world.  Place QR codes over different places for an interactive board.  Students can use the QR codes to reveal the name/capital/key features of the place.

Have a secret clue or math problem each day that students can reveal using a QR code.  It sounds so simple, but honestly, students love the mystery and hidden challenge!

In science, QR codes can be used at different stations to reveal the steps that students should follow for an experiment.  How about a periodic table of QR codes that reveal what each element does or a video that shows the element in action?

At the beginning of last year, we created a school wide school scavenger hunt that used QR codes to help students learn where different classrooms/resources could be found.  It was great fun!

Anytime you have a center activity, include a QR code that links to instructions, supplementary videos or websites.  This saves students from having to spend learning time typing in URLs or looking for directions that the last group wrote on or piled things on (or does that only happen to us?).

Do your students create a LOT of digital work like ours do?  One of the challenges we face at Anastasis is the lack of worksheets going home.  I know…it doesn’t seem like that would be a challenge, but it is.  Parents aren’t quite sure where to look for their child’s work since it is all digital.  QR codes could go home in lieu of a Friday folder that link to student work.

This time of year, it would be really neat to create a QR code advent calendar where students reveal some new piece of learning every day.

Tips: I hope that your mind is racing with the possibilities these little codes offer.  There is something to the mystery of them that appeals to students, they are like unveiling a surprise.  Don’t keep all the fun of creating them to yourself, students can easily create these and use them within their work.  I honestly can’t think of a subject or discipline that these wouldn’t be useful in.

Art: Share some art history or steps to an art project through a QR code.

Foreign Language: Create a word bank wall that has QR codes that reveal the translation of the word.

Geography: Create a map with QR codes that reveals additional information about the place.

Government: QR codes that lead students to political cartoons and related learning.

History: Exploring multiple points of view within a historical event.

Language Arts: Choose your own adventure story creation.

Math: Problem of the day.  Multiple methods for solving a problem.  Instructions for a math center activity.

Music: An exploration of world music through QR code link/videos.

PE: Links to examples of different exercises/warm ups.

Phonics: Video library of phonemes through QR code.

Science: Periodic table of QR codes with links to element information or videos.

Apps for scanning QR Codes: QR Reader, Qrafter, QR Scanner, Scan, Red Laser, Quick Scan Pro, Quick Scan, ATT code scanner.  There are hundreds of these, search your app store for “QR code” and find the one that best fits your needs and device.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using  Unitag in your classroom.

Updated Websites

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Updated Websites2270 views

Over the past week I have been re-vamping my websites.  Tenkely.org is a site that I created for my students to use.  I have pages for first through fifth grade with links to all of the sites that we use in class throughout the year.  I also have a page for parents about how my classroom runs and tips for keeping kids safe online.   The teacher site for tenkely.org  has also been completely re-done.  I added TONS of new goodies for teachers.  Obviously, I created these sites with my students and colleagues in mind but I hope that they are a source of inspiration for you too!  I am already keeping tally of links that aren’t working right so if you run across any, leave a comment so I can get them fixed up.

Viddler

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Viddler2869 views

What it is: Viddler is an AMAZING web application that lets students (or you) upload, enhance, and share digital video quickly and easily right from your web browser. I know, cool right?! The best part is, students can collaborate and comment on each other’s Viddler videos.

How to integrate Viddler into the classroom: Viddler has a million and one uses in the classroom. Record students science experiments and invite other students to comment on what was successful or what they would do differently in the experiment. Have students make a commercial about…well anything. Use your curriculum to guide the videos that your students are creating and then invite them to leave comments on other students videos. Create video tutorials for your classroom and add “secret facts” in the video in the form of comments. There is truly no limit! I often have my students create commercials because they are short and easy to record and share with others. In lieu of a book report, ask students to create a movie trailer type commercial for their book. Video adds a whole new audience for students, you will see creativity bloom. Be sure to check out the Directors Guild post below for some great uses of Viddler! After you record your videos you can embed them in your classroom blog, wiki, or website. Seriously cool huh?!

Tips: Create a class Viddler login where all class videos are recorded and saved. This will save the headache of collecting email addresses and passwords from the younger students…trust me, they will NOT remember them!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Viddler in your classroom.