Tech Tool: Whiteboard.Fi

Happy Weekend everyone!  I know you all loved the little taste of spring weather we had this week.  One more week until spring break!!!! 

It has been a while since I shared a tech tool.  During my nightly TikTok time,  I came across this tool called ClassroomScreen.com.

This site is FREE and it is amazing!!  You can create an engaging screen that will help with management and soooo much more! 

With your screens you will have options like random name generators and a voice level monitor!!!! Perfect for center time and group work.  I love that you can add your class list or several lists and the site will save them for you. 

You can upload videos and Google Slideshows to your screen too!  There is even an interactive whiteboard! You can change the background of the whiteboard to lines or grid paper too!  This is an awesome way to have everything you need all in one place.  You can even use your webcam if we are in the need of virtual teaching again. 

Use the QR code generator to quickly generate a code for students to use when heading to a website. 

Also, look at this interactive traffic light!!!!  When the light is red there is no talking!!!!  I had a real traffic light in my classroom but this one works too! You can change the light colors and add the voice level widget to go off if it gets too loud! 

This poll feature would be awesome for our morning meeting check ins! As the students vote a bar graph is generated on screen.  There are some other math tools that can be utilized too like dice and clocks. 

These videos will walk you through all of the options that you have on this free site!  

Presenting Skills

Happy Friday ALL!  It is GATEWAY season and our 3rd grade is HARD at work preparing to present to our school and our community.  It got me thinking...presenting is a life skill that we can start developing with our kiddos.  Below I am going to share some resources to support this in your classroom.

One of the ways I made sure I was hitting my speaking and listening standards in my classroom was to have students present on Fridays during our morning meeting.  Each week a student was chosen and they prepared a presentation about themselves to share with the class.  These presentations allowed us to work on eye contact, communication skills and listening skills. 

Students were given a presentation form and were encouraged to be creative. We used a rubric to help score our presentations and set goals for what we needed to focus on in the future.  

This simple system fit easily into the share part of our morning meeting routine.  

(Keep in mind, I did this with my first and 2nd grade classrooms.) 

You could also take this to the next level and have students report on stories they have written like an Author's Chair or have them research and present their findings. 

JOKES!!!!!  Who doesn't LOVE a good joke!  

This is life skill that is going to help them in their future and starting early can really set our kiddos up for success. 

Training your audience is also important.  Students need to learn to be active listeners.  How to give feed back and also get it.  This skill supports language comprehension!!!!!

This blogpost has some great ideas for getting started with presenting.  I can see our kiddos loving the Would I Lie to you activity.  I also loved using debates in the classroom! 

These videos would be awesome to use with your students!!!!  Great advice from a student's prospective. 

The CHOP is hilarious!   Please watch these!!!!!!

Share this TedTalk with your class.  This little guy is amazing! 

And the BEST part??????  It is directly related to The Science of Reading!  We NEED language comprehension to move to reading comprehension.  Hop over to this blog to learn more! 

Braining Camp Update

This week in Third Grade, Jemma visited and shared a training for our teachers about our up and coming cluster. One of the resources she shared with us is  Braining Camp. I know we have talked about it before and many of you are using this in your classrooms but I think it is worth revisiting.  

Check out a quick overview of this resource Braining Camp below!

• No need to login at all! It is in our Classlink!
• Teachers can use them on their smartboards!
• Students can login on their devices! 

Here is a quick tutorial to get you started! I love that there are different mats for you to use with each tool. 

Check out the tutorial pages by clicking the image below! (They do take a bit to load.) Each tool has a tutorial that goes along with it.  If you are struggling with SmartINK...you can use the pens to mark up your math lessons! 

You can create links and codes to share out with your students!!!!  (Great for word problems!) Just click where it says share on the sidebar of the tool!   You also can click the lightbulb to get ideas to use in your lessons!   

Here is a video that shows you all the share options! 

Finally, there are webinars listed to help support you with the apps and building lessons for your students!

Braining Camp is sprinkled throughout our curriculum guides.  So, if you are looking for something our guides would be a great place to start.