Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great holiday. I know I did! Here is something to start off your Monday. Mightybook.com is one of my favorite sites for PreK-1st grade children. It is a subscription based website, but there are some activities offered for free. On Mightybook.com, children can listen to music, read e-books, put together puzzles, listen to jokes, and more. Most of these activities work well on the SMART Board. Check them out! Here is a preview of the Metamorphosis story song.

I love it when students really enjoy the lessons I’ve planned for them. I’ve had some success recently that I wanted to share.

4th Grade- Butterfly Life Cycles on Kerpoof.com

Our 4th grade Science teacher asked me to plan an activity on animal life cycles. I remembered seeing a lesson plan on Kerpoof for butterflies, so I decided that would be the route to take. I spent about an hour creating my own butterfly life cycle so I could make a list of tips and tricks for the students. I’m thankful I did, because this handout turned out to be a lifesaver. The students printed their life cycles in medium card format, then took them back to class and wrote an explanation on the inside of the card.

Click here to see the picture full size.

3rd Grade- I Love Money

The students have been begging to use the SMARTboard in lab class. A few students have had the opportunity to interact with it, but not all since time is so short in the lab. This week my third graders are reviewing counting coins in math, so I checked my delicious resources to see if I could find an appropriate activity for whole group participation. I lucked up and found the CA$H OUT game. The game shows characters in a grocery store setting. The character tells you what item they want to buy, how much money it costs, how much money they will give you, and how much change you owe them. Your job is to give them the correct amount of change by touching the dollars or coins and clicking “give change”. The great thing about this game is that it has 3 different levels. The easiest level works only with coins. The medium level works with dollars and coins, and the hard level works with dollars in the thousands. You can also choose to display the change amount, or let the students calculate the change amount themselves.

After showing them the process, I let the students come up one at a time and add a coin. It didn’t take long for everyone to have a turn, and they were so engaged and excited about getting to interact with the SMARTboard. Once they went to their seat, they had the option of either continuing to play on CA$H OUT or visit the H.I.P. Pocket Change website.

Not much planning for the money lesson, but it was a success nonetheless.