My Smartboard Activity

I was able to utilize the program SMART Notebook to create an interactive unit review activity on the subject of Reptiles and Amphibians. I imagine such an activity being used to conclude the unit, perhaps as a mini-celebration, since it includes game-style review of all of the relevant content. It is a fun, collaborative, and interactive activity that still has a great deal of room for assessment. It includes a little bit of math and a lot of reading comprehension in addition to the science content knowledge. I envision students taking turns coming up to the smart board to take part in these activities. None of the activities are passive, so students will be engaged even though some of the content will be familiar.

The first slide is a quick "brain warm up" activity which asks students to build the reptile museum by filling the "cages" with the correct amount of the correct animal. To determine the correct amount the students will need to use their multiplication facts. I used the infinite cloner tool so that each animal can be replicated infinitely and so the correct number may be dragged into the cages without cluttering up the screen. This is a quick and easy warm up that would get students thinking, especially if this review celebration was held after lunch or on a Friday! 

The next slide is a simple sorting activity. The students are asked to sort the various creatures based on whether or not they are reptiles or amphibians. Because I used clip art, each animal is labeled so that there will be no confusion. While the images of the animals move when touched, the labels do not so the screen will not become cluttered as students take their turns. I began the actual content review with this activity because it is the most basic. 

For the next activity, students are asked to use the word bank to fill in the parts of the frog lifecycle. There are more responses than there are answers, so it is possible to mislabel the diagram. Because of that, the activity is self-checking. If the label the student drags to the picture is correct, a check mark will appear. If it is incorrect, a red X will appear and the student has the opportunity to remove the incorrect label and try again. Once a label is used correctly it cannot be used more than once. 

The next activity utilizes a die, which adds a touch of randomness. The student is asked to approach the board and tap the die to roll it. Once rolled, one of six animal names will appear - three reptiles and three amphibians. The die has been set to not repeat an animal unless all animals have been rolled. Once they roll an animal, the student is then asked to move the label to the amphibian or reptile column in the accompanying chart and tell the group why that animal belongs there. In theory, the chart can then be cleared and more students can participate, citing their own reasons why they sorted their animal where they did. 

Next, I created a crossword puzzle for the students to solve as a group. Each clue describes either an animal or a vocabulary word. The clues use academic vernacular so that they must have an understanding of the language and the content in order to solve the puzzle. The puzzle can be filled in using the smartboard's pen so that students can write directly on the puzzle. To check their work they need only press the 'solve' button and the solutions will appear.

The next two activities are similar, but one is specifically on the topic of reptiles and the other is specifically on the topic of amphibians. Each activity includes eight "fact" tiles which, when clicked, reveal a fun or interesting fact about either reptiles or amphibians. The students are asked to come up to the board, select a tile by tapping it, and then read their fact out loud to the class. I think the students would have a lot of fun with this, and I imagine it would spark a lot of interesting discussion which would allow them to use their science vocabulary. The sources for all of the facts are cited at the bottom of each board of tiles. 

Glogster!

 This is a digital poster which I created using the online resource glogster. Glogster allows users to utilize a number of templates to add backgrounds, text, images, video, and sound to their own 'poster' webpage. Students can decide which topic they'd like to create a poster on and then proceed to curate their glogster to share what they have learned. Because this resource is completely free and requires no special materials or ink, students from all economic backgrounds have the ability to create a clear, engaging poster project to be shared with the class. Access to materials or crafty parental assistants is not necessary to produce a project that is clean, fun, and interactive. The interface is more or less intuitive, and students with experience using computers will likely be able to figure out how it works all on their own. Glogster is an excellent resource for educators who want to try to incorporate project-based learning in the classroom but just don't have the time or the resources. I imagine that even students who are not enthusiastic writers might be excited to create content for an online poster. For a free tool, glogster is fantastic!

My own example, above, is on the topic of Hogwarts Houses. As a Harry Potter enthusiast, I love to share my knowledge of the inner details of the Potter franchise, and thought it would be an excellent topic for a digital poster. Most of the templates came from glogster itself. I added the images of the house crests, the links to the personality quizzes, and the humorous video. I also wrote all of the content about the Hogwarts houses. It was easy and fun, and I imagine that students who are grouped into literature circles and studying different books might benefit from making digital posters together as a concluding exercise.

Concept Map

This is a concept map, which I created using a tool called Popplet. Popplet has a user-friendly, very intuitive drag and drop interface which allows individuals, such as educators, to create graphic organizers that can include both text and images. This tool can be used to explore connections between concepts in the classroom with students of any age.

 I chose to create my Popplet Concept Map on the key concept of Baby Animals, which is a curricular theme that we examine in Kindergarten. We might explore a concept map such as this after we have already learned about many different kinds of animals as we begin to make connections between all living things, as well as compare and contrast what we already know. 

I began by making a distinction between how baby animals are born; either via live birth or by hatching from an egg, which are both general concepts that a kindergarten student can be expected to understand. I then narrowed it down to a different concept that we explore in kindergarten, which is how we can tell, just by looking at an animal, how we might classify it. We ask the question "Does it look similar or different to its parents/adults of the same species?" If yes, we know it is a mammal. If not, we need to look closer. Some animals go through metamorphosis, which makes them either an insect or amphibian, while some begin to look more like the adults of their species over time, which may make them a fish, a bird, or a reptile. Finally, I provided specific (often local and/or common and easy to relate to) examples that kindergartners would recognize, such as human babies, seagulls, and goldfish.

This concept map is simple. It does not include many cross links. I'm not sure it's appropriate to use too many of those in early childhood classrooms because the map begins to look cluttered and confusing, and the goal is to create connections and understanding, not frustration. As students grow older and become more comfortable with graphic organizers, however, I imagine such connections will become far more integral to how we assess student learning. At this stage, however, I believe this simple but informative concept map can be used as a reference during a baby animal classification activity toward the end of kindergarten or beginning of first grade. It is simple and (especially with the addition of the pictures) accessible.