Sorting Activity

This week I hosted other DK teachers who have Interactive White Boards. They came to watch my students use the board. Here is the sorting activity that we created as part of this observation.

 

 

In the activity students pull out various pictures of hats and jackets that are hidden behind the blue rectangle. We used a variety of actual pictures and clip art drawings to challenge the students more. We also included a verbal prompt (as indicated by the speaker icon).

Great Find!

I made a great find at Target last week. They are selling multipacks of small sized dry erase markers. These are great for little hands to develop proper grip and control.

Hibernation Station Activities

This month we read the story Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows. I made an activity for the Promethean to go along with it. In the activity students move pictures of animals onto a train. We stop on each page while reading to see which animals need to be added. Then we match animals and then there are several pages of counting animals.



Circle Time Activity

Here is our circle time/attendance activity. We usually do this right after lunch as some of our students are at integration in the morning and three days a week we have gym.

On our attendance page students move their name/pictures to the picture of the classroom. "Jessica's" picture is attached to an invisible line and using "Move along a path" it only allows her to move it a certain way in order to teach her to move items on the board.

 

On the next page we are working on identifying staff members and answering yes/no questions. The universal no, and the green yes circle are done with "drag a copy" allowing the students to use as many as necessary. We ask the student if they saw the person today/if we will see (referring to our visual schedule) and then model a yes/no response for them. The students then select the appropriate response and move it to the person.



 

On the next page we dress "Billy" for the weather. We discuss what we wore today and what he needs to wear and students take turns adding a piece of clothing.

On the next page our special helper gets to select a song for us to sing. When they press the song picture it jumps to the visuals for that specific song.

 

 

Here is a sample of the visuals for the songs. (This is our current favourite).

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.

Decidedly Low-Tech

This past week I got the help of my dad to create a Busy Board for my new DK classroom. We got the supplies we needed at Home Depot and my dad stained and framed ahead of time. 

We made two doors for the students to open, and I am planning on using velcro to stick pictures behind one of the doors and I will use a stick on mirror behind the other. We used a variety of latches and clasps for the students to explore. We also attached two wheels on castors for the students to spin, a door stop, and a key lock. I will post some photos of the kids exploring it once it is up and secured to the wall.

Next Year

Next year I will be changing jobs. I am going to be teaching the Diagnostic Kindergarten at Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy. We have been approved for a SEA Claim for an Interactive White Board. We will be getting a Promethean Board - great news for all you Promethean users! I will continue to share ideas and inspiration from my program and am excited to try out new things on the Promethean.