Exploring Symmetry

Our students have been enjoying building different pictures out of pattern blocks. We decided to introduce some of them to the idea of symmetry. We created several different flipchart pages that had different pictures made with yellow, red, and blue squares. We then used "drag a copy" to allow the students to select as many of the different coloured squares as they needed from the shape bank on the right hand side. This was a quick activity to create and we are looking forward to seeing our students explore symmetry more in the coming weeks. We used a white background in activinspire so we hope these aren't too confusing.

One of the beginning activities. Student pull shapes from the right side to make a
horizontal line of shapes.

One of the more advanced pictures. Students pull shapes from the right side
to make a large square.

Why I Love the Bitsboard App for iPad

I love the Bitsboard App for the iPad!

We have one iPad in my classroom that was generously donated by students at Whitney Public School who fund-raised in order to buy it for us. My class is made up of a combination of verbal and non-verbal students. Earlier this year we were having trouble assessing our students using a variety of techniques including the Brigance. My EA and I both felt that our students were not engaged in the assessments. Last year I was told about Bitsboard by teachers at Beverly School, so I decided to set it up.

Bitsboard allows you to use pre-made libraries of images, sentences, adjectives, nouns, letters, numbers and all sorts of other categories. You can also build your own activity, for instance we are working on recognizing our names in print, so I took pictures of all my students names (typed out in Comics Sans). The pre-made libraries come with an audio prompt, and you can add your own audio to the libraries you create. Bitsboard then allows you to work on a variety of activities for each library. Below is an image of some of the activity choices.

So far we have mainly used the Flashcards and Photo Touch activities. The Photo Touch activity gives you options for how few and how many images you want displayed for the student to choose from. So far my students are only asked to select the correct answer from a maximum of three choices, and we have had amazing success. The students I have been using Bitsboard with are so engaged by it, that they are able to work through multiple boards. (Even better - Bitsboard scores the activity for you so you can keep track - not on the actual program but I just write down how they did in my notebook as they work. See sample below). 

Prior to using Bitsboard I would tell you that some of my students could not consistently recognize any letters, shapes or colours. I WAS WRONG! One of my students who has a very limited attention span, showed me that she can identify at least 7 letters, 4 colours and knows a lot of descriptive words (i.e. running, drinking, crying). 

If you do have an iPad in your classroom, I encourage you to download it from the App store. I believe the App only costs $2.99, which is an amazing price for such a useful App.

Calendar

We do Calendar everyday. I designed my calendar routine to allow for the most amount of skill acquisition and demonstration as possible while still being engaging and fun for the students. I have a picture of every page of our calendar except the weather graph which I am changing to a more user friendly version. I did start my Calendar with a Calendar activity I found on Smart Exchange, and it is an ever evolving activity.

 The first page is our sign in page. Students move their name from AWAY to HERE. Some students who are working on recognizing their name have a colour coded name while the others are black. There is also a small star in the HERE column which acts as a target for students who are learning to move items with purpose on the Smart Board. After student count how many people (including staff) are here or away and how many people are in our class altogether.

The second page is our monthly calendar. Students are in charge of writing the day of the week, following a two colour pattern, and adding the type of weather for that day. The weather images are infinite cloned.

Then we have our weather graph which I don't have a picture of. Next is the days of the week. We sing the Days of the Week song to the tune of the Addams Family. The days are colour coded to allow for more success for students. As well by colour coding words, students actually access a different part of their brain when retrieving the word. We have had great success with this for not only the days of the week, but in teaching one of my students to print their name in order.

 Next we dress Billy for the day. We sing a simple song "What will Billy wear today, wear today, wear today. What will Billy wear today, what will he wear" and then students take turns selecting appropriate clothing for Billy. I had to make snowpants for him as there were no snowpants in the Smart Notebook Gallery. At the end we sing "Billy's dressed for the weather today thank you very much."

Since we do Calendar after recess, we use our Calendar to assess recall and observation skills by asking students what vehicles they saw outside. As we have a construction site next door half of the vehicles are construction trucks. Students move one or two vehicles into the boxes.

The last part of Calendar is about choice making. We give the students a selection of 8 songs to sing and the daily helper gets to pick. When they touch the image of the song they want it jumps to that page. I've included the visuals for two of the songs we do.

Google Docs for Calendar

Basic Shapes

Here is a Basic Shapes activity I have done with my students. The students get to watch a fun video by KidsTV123 on Youtube then practice tracing shapes. At the end there is a game for them to play. I also change which shape the video and game are hidden behind after each use to help teach shape recognition.

Here is the link to Google Docs for Basic Shapes

Counting to 10

I used some fairly high-interest objects to create this lesson. In it students have to put the appropriate amount of counters into or onto a given object. I found using numbers higher than ten is too busy for the students. This activity is available on Smart Exchange

Here is the Link to the Google Docs for Counting to 10

Matching By Size

In this math activity students have to sort three items by size into the correct box. This activity was designed for Smart Notebook but could easily be created using Inspiration for Promethean Board. The benefit of using Inspiration is that the boxes could be containers so they would "spit out" the item that did not fit. This activity has been uploaded to Smart Exchange.

Here is the link to Google Docs for Match by Size