Creating Math Activities

Tania wanted to know how to create clock math activities in Inspiration today. In 10 minutes she had made 2 activities that children are going to be using independently and in groups using the mimio.

Step 1: Google 'Blank Clock Faces'. Click on Line Drawing in the side panel options
Step 2: Drag the clock face of your choice onto the Kidspiration or Inspiration page
Step 3: Draw the lines by clicking on the line tool on the toolbar

Step 4: Change the lines into arrows by going to Link - Arrow Direction

Step 5: Add a text box below the clock

Step 6: Click and drag around the whole clock picture and text box, press Ctrl or Command C and paste on another part of the page, repeat until you have covered the page. Save your activity as a template.

Use the same template to create other activities.

The same activities can be created in IWB notebook software as well. Do a search for clock and you will find a clock face, hands and digital display.

mimio, Smart notebook, Activinspire

This day in History

One of the activities I timetable children to do each day before school is to find out what happened on this day in History. Some of the sites I had been using were American (and were the day before, because of time difference).

Sometimes the information on those sites were not really appropriate for children in New Zealand. I came across this site New Zealand History online. What a great way to teach our students New Zealand history.

How to use in the Classroom
IWB
Make a file using the notebook software of the IWB you are using. Add the links to the first page.

I also link to a weather site and current news site.

Students are timetabled (3 a day) to click on a link, read the page, decide which item they are going to copy and take a screen capture to a new page.
This becomes part of our oral language time in the morning where all 3 students have a chance to report back to the class what they have found out. They particularly like using the IWB to navigate to their pages and we always take the opportunity to use the highlighter pens to identify key words, nouns, great adjectives etc( what ever happens to be our focus at that time.)

Projector only

Make these links in a PowerPoint and hyperlink to the address or the pictures. When presenting back students click on the link and find the item they want to talk about.

No Projector or IWB

This still works well without a projector, students take notes of what they have found out and report back to the classroom. This is great activity for making sure that all children get hands on time using the computer and the internet every two weeks.