GeoGames for the Promethean Board

I just found a great website to help teach geography skills.  On this website there is one activity called GeoGames where the kids can play a game that relates to the globe and maps.  During the game the students have the ability to choose between building planet earth and placing the correct countries and cities on the globe.  While building planet earth the students can take the poles and drag them to the correct spots on the globe and then take the countries and drag them as well.  The countries and cities work the same but they are a bit more challenging.  I would recommend the countries and cities for the middle and high school students.  The best part about this game is that it is timed and the students can have races to see who can place everything in the shortest amount of time.  After you build your map you can print it out for the students to use at a later date or even so that they can refer back to later.

Read Wrtite Think

Read, Write, Think is a wonderful website if you are looking for interactive resources for the classroom.  All of the resources can be used with the Promethean Board and can be controlled by the students or the teacher.  Once the teacher finds the activity that they want to use it is basically showing the students how to use it and then letting them play and learn.  If you click on the resources tab and select student interactives you will be taken to a page that gives you some featured activities as well as a place to search for specific activities.  This is a great way to implement interactives into your lessons without a lot of work to prepare for them.

All activities come with lesson plans as well as ideas to help you use the resources within you classroom.  It also gives you suggestions as to how you can use the one interactive activity with many different grade levels.  This is a easy to use website that will help your lessons come to life.

Using the Tooltip

ActivInspire has a great new feature that they have added and that is called the Tooltip.  The Tooltip works with any object that you have put on a page.  It could be text or images.  As you hover over the text or the image that has the Tooltip, a box will appear with information in it.  This information can be anything that you want it to be. Here is how to create the Tooltip...

1. Place a text box or an object on your flipchart page.
2. Open your browser and click on the Property Browser.
3. With you browser still open click on the object.
4. In the Label section of the Property browser Type in the words that you want to appear in the "Caption" box.
5. At the bottom of the Label section make sure that the Behaviour is set to Tooltip.
6. You can also make changes to the way the Tooltip looks by changing the font name, size and color along with the background of the Tooltip box.

To see a great flipchart that has Tooltips already done click here!

Interactive Activities

If you are looking for a great resource for teaching math you should try the Illuminations website.  On this website they have many interactive activities for teachers to use with thier students.  You can search for the activities based on the concept that you want to find as well as the grade level.  Most of the activities can be used with what you are already teaching and are a way to help your students better understand the concepts.  The Illuminations website is partnered with Thinkfinity and it is run by the Verizon foundation.  I would suggest taking a look at these two websites for some wonderful free resources.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Since today is Dr. Seuss's Birthday a great website to look at is the Seussville website.  On this website there are many activities for your students to interact with.  If you go to the games section you can choose from matching games to patterning.  Most of the games can be used with the Promethean Board as well as on student machines.  One of the best things about the website is the fact that you can read quotes from a variety of Dr. Seuss's books.  You can also create a story using pictures and characters from the Dr. Seuss stories.  Take a look at it when you get a chance, you will be pleased I am sure.