Promethean Tutorials?

I am thinking of doing a series of basic tutorials for those of you that are using Promethean Interactive White Boards and ActivInspire.  What I need to know is....what do you want to know how to do?  Leave a comment below telling me what kinds of tutorials you would like to see!

Calendar Book

I haven’t gotten a chance to take photos of our March Calendar book in action, but I think you’ll get the gist of it with photos from February!

My friends convinced me to start doing calendar book in September this year.  In the past, I have started at after our Christmas break.  I was a little hesitant at first, but like always, the kiddos blew me away!  I only started with a September calendar (with the numbers dotted), and the days in school number grid.  Each month I add more pages.

We do our calendar book using our ActivBoard, but it can just as easily be done the “old fashioned” way.  I copy the pages on construction paper each month so they hold up a little bit better.  They are in a small 1/2” three ring binder (Sam’s Club) and each has a pencil pouch that holds a crayon and a pencil.  (I figure the binders last about 2 years – after a while the rings start to open really easily – which equates to a mess of papers on the floor!)

So, this is what calendar book looks like for us:

The children gather on the floor in front of the white board with their calendar books.  We will often start with some sort of song or chant.  In the beginning of the year, it was a lot of alphabet songs that the children could follow along with.

We try to write the numbers in some sort of pattern on the calendar page.  The children have their own calendar page – I generally find these at Jessica Meacham’s site.

We write the day and sing the days of the week and the months of the year.

We write the date in coins.

Practice tally marks (one tally mark for each day).

Check the temperature and track that.

Graph the weather.

Practice counting by 2s and odd/even numbers.

Practice reading the clock and writing the time.

Place value – this one also has a “straw” page that a friend made, I must have forgotten to take a picture!

Days in school 100s grid (we continued onto another grid after the 100th day)

And lots and lots of songs….

And of course the tooth tally and birthday chart (not pictured) as needed.

I like to start off calendar book using a video from Heidi Songs.  We only do about half of the video while we wait for everyone to get their morning work put away and come to the carpet. 

Keep in mind that we didn’t START with all of these pages in their calendar books!  I add a page or 2 every month based on what they need.  The kids get SOOO excited about a new page.  I try to do the page that I want to add for about a month on the ActivBoard before I give it to the kids.  That way they know exactly what to expect. 

Kim Adsit has an excellent resource available on her TpT store if you’re interested in starting calendar book.  She and Shari Sloane will walk you through all the steps you need to get started!  Once you start doing calendar book, you will never go back! The children are SO engaged in calendar every morning, and are practicing all of these skills EVERY day! 

If you have questions, please let me know!  This certainly isn’t my idea – with the help of my awesome friends and some great internet resources (Shari Sloane and Jessica Meacham) I was able to get started and continue to add things that my kiddos need.  Just take it slow in the beginning! You can do it!

Predictable Charts

I have always loved the idea of doing predictable charts with children.  However, I have never been able to do get in the habit of doing it because they take SOO long!  It is not effective unless you write each word in front of the children -- because you have to write each word, the children only really have the patience to watch you write 3 or 4 lines.

Well....I have an interactive white board in my room, but you could do this if you just have a projector since you are not really utilizing the "interactive" part of the IWB.  I created a simple table for the number of words that I knew we were going to write.  As I asked the children the question, I simply typed on my computer! It was brilliant! The children still could see, say, and spell each word as I typed it.  I could get through all the kids in about 5 minutes!

I later when back and played with the table a little bit so it was big enough for the kids to cut out and reassemble.  I cut out each strip for them. I knew that there were going to be some sneaky ones who would just glue the whole line down or cut and glue the words in order.  So before they could have the page that they were gluing the words down, they had to completely cut it out.

 (We'll have to work on spacing with this one!)

I'll assemble the pages in a class book for the kiddos to read.  I think they turned out great!

Here is another example from a friend.  She called the kids over individually and then cut the words up for them to assemble.  For some, she cut all the words apart, for others she only cut a few words apart.