Teachers Love SMART Boards

SMARTBoards and the Halloween Safety House

Here's one more Notebook file that you can share with your students for Halloween. It's a fun application to help educate your students about important safety tips for Halloween. I call it the the Halloween Safety House.

To use the application, students would come up to the SMART Board and touch on one of the Halloween characters. If they find the right one, it will show them a new Halloween safety tip. If they touch the wrong one, the witch will scream with delight.

If they make it to the end, they can touch Frankenstein to hear the Monster Mash song.

Here's a short video to show how it works.

If you can't see the video, you can click here.

Download the Halloween Safety House File (the file is rather large because of the audio)

I hope you enjoy using this. Have a fun and safe Halloween!

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SMARTBoards and Inserting Sound Into Notebook

I have had a few inquiries about how to insert the Halloween sound files located on the Halloween resource page into the Notebook software. The easiest way to demonstrate how to do this is to create a short video tutorial.

This tutorial demonstrates how to save a sound file from the Internet and insert it into Notebook so it plays when an object is touched. Notebook only uses sound files that are in the mp3 format. If you have a sound file that is in a different format, you can convert it using the Media Convert website.

The sound file used in the video comes from the SMART Boards and Halloween Resource page.

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SMARTBoards and Some Halloween Jokes

I was going to wait until my next podcast to share this custom Notebook file but I thought it would be a lot more fun to get this out as soon as possible.

I created a fun application for teachers to use during this spooky Halloween season. It's a Notebook file containing 10 Halloween jokes. Each page contains a different joke. The jokes are told by some of the creepiest Halloween characters you've ever seen. To get the answer to each joke, students go up to the SMARTBoard and touch on one of the creepy characters.

You can use the pages as reward pages for getting a correct answer or use can use it at the end of the day just to have a little fun. I'll also add this file to the Teachers Love SMART Boards Halloween Page that contains online games, activities, and informational websites. It also contains custom Notebook files, Halloween clip art, and some fun Halloween mp3 sound files to insert in your Notebook applications.

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SMARTBoard Halloween Collection

I have gathered various Halloween resources for the SMART Board and placed them on a special Halloween Resource page.

The page includes Clip Art, Games, Creative Activities, Informational Sites, Notebook Files, and Sound Files

The Clip Art Photo Library contains free clip art that you can add to your Notebook files. You should find exactly what you're looking for here without the need to scour the Internet...I've already done the legwork!

I've also gathered some fun mp3 sound files that you can save to your computer and import into your Notebook file. Sound is a great way to get the kids excited about using the SMART Board! 

I also have various Notebook files including word search riddles, a number sense game, and a ghost countdown.

I will continue to add to this page as we move closer to Halloween. If you know of any additional Halloween resources that work great on the SMART Board, please share the resource in the comment area and I'll try to add it to the page.

Please share the Halloween Resource Page with the other teachers in your school.

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Get SMART with SMART Boards Podcast - Episode 5

Episode 5 of Get SMART with SMART Boards has some really great resources for the SMARTBoard including an amazing video tutorial for customizing the Random Number Generator found in the Notebook Gallery. 

Harvey Almarode shares one of the very best clip art resources for teachers called Free Clip Art from Phillip Martin. He also talks about and shares his custom Notebook application called Cubes and Balances.

I focused on various methods of selecting random information by sharing the ClassTools.net Random Name Generator as well as a Notebook file containing information on how to create your very own random spinner using the tools found in the standard Notebook Toolbar.

The video on customizing the random number generator shows you how to incorporate a random number generator into various images and themes to help increase student engagement. If you want to really impress your students, you can create your own Random Student Picker inside Notebook by taking the Notebook Technique - Random Student Picker course found only at Teacher Online Training.

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SMARTBoards and Punctuation Campground

I love the site from Harcourt School Publishers called Punctuation Campground. Very  few online Language Arts sites dealing with proper punctuation can be used effectively on the SMART Board. However, Punctuation Campground does not require any keyboard input, it's easy to navigate, and it provides great feedback and reference material to help both the student and the teacher.

In the activity, a sentence is presented for the student. The student then has to determine what punctuation to add to the sentence to make it correct.

To enter the punctuation, students touch where they want to enter some punctuation and then they touch on the punctuation types listed below the sentence. If they need to move the cursor, they can touch on arrows to place the cursor exactly where they want.

The activity has a hint button that shows where punctuation needs to go but does not tell the student what punctuation is required. Also, below the activity are links to a glossary where students can learn when to use the correct punctuation.

I really like this activity and it can be used at almost any grade level.

Why not test your punctuation prowess before using in the classroom.

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SMARTBoards and Viewing Our Solar System

I found a fabulous interactive website that lets students explore our solar system to get a much clearer understanding about planet orbits, size, and relative position to one another.

The site is simply called Planets and it's a fantastic resource for the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

The site allows the teacher or student to control how they are viewing the solar system. Users can touch and drag to move things around and they have a complete set of controls to change scale, speed of orbits (passing of time), or planetary object to follow. For example, if you follow the Sun, the Sun is stationary and it shows the other planets orbiting the Sun. If you  follow the Earth, then it shows the other planetary objects with a stationary Earth.

For you Pluto lovers, this resource shows Pluto as being the farthest "planet" away from the Sun. :o)

I hope you enjoy this incredible resource for the SMART Board. Please share it with your fellow teachers.

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Smartboards and Food and Water Donations

Can using your SMART Board help end hunger? That's an interesting question and the answer is that we call all do our part to help in this world crisis.

However, one organization called FreeRice has a fun website that, along with your SMART Board, involves you in the process of donating food to people in need. 

The FreeRice website tests your knowledge of various subjects including Vocabulary, Grammar, Foreign Language, Geography, Art, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

For every correct answer you get, FreeRice will donate 10 grains of rice on your behalf to the U.N. World Food Program (WFP). 

FreeRice does not make any money from this. "FreeRice is a website committed to the cause of ending hunger around the world. It is run entirely for free and at no profit. All money (100%) raised by the site goes to the UN World Food Program to help feed the hungry. Sponsors make all payments to the UN World Food Program directly"

Another, more dubious, website called FreePoverty claims to donate cups of water on your behalf based on how well you can locate various places on a world map. The website works great on the SMART Board and the kids will love seeing how many cups of water they can donate.

With this being said, I cannot find any legitimate sources that verify that this site is actually donating any water. Despite this fact, it's a fun challenge for the kids and maybe you can use the donation amounts that kids accumulate and create your own donation program within your school.

For example, for every cup of water that the children score, the school will donate 1 cent toward world hunger. The school could run a week-long challenge with the classrooms on who can accumulate more cups of water. At the end of the week, the school makes a donation on behalf of the classrooms that participated. Not only would this be fun and educational, it would help teach children about social responsibility.

Both of these sites offer a unique and engaging way to test your knowledge. I enjoy both sites and I highly recommend them for use in the classroom. You can find out more about both of these website by going to their FAQ (frequently asked questions) page.

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