Training (January)

In January I attended a SMART Board training on using the lesson activity tool kit. Having the dedicated time to focus on learning new tools to use and how to adapt them to make it meaningful for our young students was invaluable. It is very easy to learn a couple different strategies, but finding the time to advance and learn more creative ways to incorporate the technology into our days is a challenge. Since we often use these activities during free play time, my challenge remains trying to facilitate several students using the activity while also keeping the computer from being swarmed by the rest of the class, assuring them that they too will have an opportunity to "play the game". I plan to develop a visual schedule/sign up sheet so that the students can "see" when their turn is coming.
Creating meaningful SMART Board activities for my 3 and 4 year olds challenges me to really examine what skills I am targeting, how to make it a visual, yet text rich activity with labeling to reinforce literacy concepts. Many of the activities in the tool kit are too advanced, requiring too much text and reading to be effective for my students. The games that I have adapted use the hotspots, image match, image arrange, memory, and image sort. With these tools I have been able to make letter and picture matching, story sequencing, vocabulary memory and sorting games.