SMART Notebook

Recently, I worked on my first SMART Notebook. It was a really interesting experience because SMART Notebooks can do so much more than a regular PowerPoint. Not only can you create slides, but you can also add pictures and interactive activities to help students learn. It's also extremely user friendly because everything you add to your presentation is sorted by subject. My SMART Notebook was on telling time to the nearest five minutes on analog and digital clocks for second graders.

I want to walk through what the lesson would look like. I started out with a review on analog and digital clocks and telling time to the nearest half hour. According to the common core standards, this is the time curriculum for first grade. I then entered into our new topic by asking the students a question. I want them to predict what they think the other numbers on a clock mean. I would then have my students count on the next slide the tick marks it takes to get from one number to the next so they understand where the number five comes from when counting time. Then there are a few slides of practice. Ideally I think I'd like for students to work together and ask questions while doing this. It's a new concept so there would need to be time spent on it. Then I have a slide where we count the numbers together so they feel more comfortable counting by fives and telling time by fives. Then I found a really interesting graphic online that has spaces for you to put the numbers by five onto a clock. I would most likely have students come up and write their answers on the SMART board. Then we would check our answers. To end the lesson there is one more page of practice. On each of the practice pages or pages when there is just a question, I would like for the students to have a discussion. Slide nine is a great example of this. This slide is like a checkpoint to make sure all the students understand that the numbers go by fives when counting minutes. All of the students need to be able to answer this question. If not, more explanation will be necessary.

For the most part this lesson is self explanatory. I loved working with SMART Notebook for the first time because it has made lessons much more interactive. I love how much students will be able to get up and move. It's really important to me that my students are active in the lessons, and this is a great way to do that.