Ideas for the Primary Classroom

[jurczak]

Hello Planet:)

I had a 1st grade teacher ask me some ways other teachers are using their Promethean Boards to enhance instruction, and in addition to what I come up with, I thought it would be great to have her also see the power of the Promethean Planet forum by posting my thoughts here so others could contribute as well. (Wow, that's a long sentence!)

Some ideas I thought of:

1. Using the board with a great website like Starfall.com and using the overlay to annotate on top, possibly to highlight sight words, look for certain vowel sounds, etc.

2. Having the board as a center during guided reading or math groups. I loved using my board as a center and having the students work in small groups - talk about student-centered!

3. Pulling images out of the Resource Library when introducing difficult new vocabulary or concepts to give the students a visual representation. Then we could interact with the images by categorizing, labeling, manipulating, etc.

4. Downloading some of the great calendar math flipcharts for daily math skills practice (she already knows about this one, but in case we have anyone who hasn't found them yet, there are some awesome ones out there!)

These are just a few to get started, can't wait to see what others will share!

[Rosie MacAlpine]

Hi Kim,
It's a huge topic, because there's so much you can do with the software! So here's just five ways that my board enhanced instruction in my classroom.
1. Ability to use scanned worksheets in my flipchart - so students could see a huge version of their page, and I could effectively model how to complete the activity for my students.
2. Virtual resources of many of the hands on maths resources we had in the classroom. For example, I could model how to represent a number with MAB blocks while students used blocks at their desks. Then students could come to the board and use the blocks to solve or pose problems for the rest of the class.
3. Handwriting recognition to neaten up my messy writing! Students can also use this to check that they are forming letters correctly.
4. Being able to write words on the board (handwriting recognition or annotation) and then select, group, and rearrange words and concepts.
5. The onscreen timer - my class became much better at being able to manage their time and complete activities when they could see exactly how long they had left to go.

have fun!
Rosie +wave+

[davidlloyd]

That last one Rosie is so important. When I taught Primary I found it really difficult to get pupils to understand how to time there activities. But that was in the days before Activboards.:o

[LisaD]

Check out the "Learning the Alphabet" theme. It compiles great lessons for young children as well as special resource packs, weblinks and an article with tips and ideas!

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=nav.15742

Lisa