Written by James Hollis
The interactive spelling site called Spin & Spell is an incredibly engaging spelling activity that works great on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard. While it can be used in any of the primary grades to enhance the curriculum, it would be especially effective in the ESL classroom since it has an image and sound accompanying the each word.
This is a wonderful interactive lesson that reviews the different types of adjectives and then allows students to check their understanding by taking a quiz or playing a game. The activity works great on a SMART Board, especially when displayed in full screen mode.
I didn’t really say too much about this site on that initial blog post…I didn’t need to. It doesn’t take long to realize what an amazing resource this is for the SMART Board classroom.The site contains over 100 courses covering Math, Science, Computer Skills, Language Arts, and English.
I love the site from Harcourt School Publishers called Punctuation Campground. Very few online Language Arts sites dealing with proper punctuation can be used effectively on the SMART Board. However, Punctuation Campground does not require any keyboard input, it’s easy to navigate, and it provides great feedback and reference materialPunctuationl to help both the student and the teacher.
However, one organization called FreeRice has a fun website that, along with your SMART Board, involves you in the process of donating food to people in need.
The WordAhead site allows you to choose from hundreds of words to review in video format. Each video uses graphics, text, and audio to describe the word, give it’s definition, and present the word in various contextual situations to provide a deeper understanding of the word. You can also view the videos in fullscreen which is great for displaying on the SMARTBoard.
Most of the activities require data input since they focus on writing skills. These activities are still extremely useful to present and use on the SMART Board although you’ll probably require an actual keyboard to enter in the data.
Macmighty I would like to share with you a collection of interactive stories for students aged 5 to 10 that was gathered together by the Oak Street Elementary School in Plattsburgh, NY. This is a fantastic example of how a school can provide easy access to wonderful interactive sites that work great on the SMART Board.
SpellingCity recently won the honor of being “SMART Board Ready” as they’ve revamped all of their activities to work by touching or dragging objects. They’re also in the process of revising all their games so they can be displayed in full-screen!
Here’s a wonderful resource for your SMART Board called Flashcard DB. This site allows teachers to build a set of flash cards in a matter of a few minutes or use one of the thousand pre-made flashcards. I actually created an account (optional if you want to build your own set of flashcards) and built my first set of literary review flashcards in under five minutes.