Interactive Whiteboard using a Wii Remote

Do you have an interactive whiteboard in your classroom?  If you do, consider yourself very lucky!!  I've always been so jealous of teachers who have Smart boards or Promethean boards in their classrooms.  There's just so much you can do with those things!!!

Last year I started looking all over the internet for "cheap Smart boards"....I seriously googled those exact words.   What I found was a way you can use a projector, a computer with bluetooth, a Wii remote, and an infrared pen to create a fairly inexpensive interactive whiteboard!! 

The site I stumbled upon was called Teach With Tech and I purchased everything I needed to get my interactive whiteboard set up for about 150 dollars.    Go check out their site for more information on the technical aspects of this project or simply google Wii interactive whiteboard.  You will find gobs of information, pictures, and videos from others who have done similar projects.  

As with anything, there are pros and cons to using this system.  

The pros far outweigh the cons, but I'll tell you about both of them.  

First the PROS!  :-)

One big pro is that I can write on my screen......using the Smoothboard toolbar!  

 (you can see the toolbar in the lower right hand corner of the screen....it allows me to change the color, size, etc. of the pen stroke!) 

Another pro is that I can use the pen as a "mouse" and click on links right from my screen!  

This comes in so handy!!

One of the things I LOVE about the setup, is that I can use my interactive whiteboard with Promethean board lessons.  I simply downloaded the Active Inspire software (FREE) and went to town looking for interactive Promethean lessons!  In this pic, I am dragging short & long Aa pictures to their correct box!

Now for the CONS :-(

 Because I am "writing" on a screen that is hanging from the ceiling, the lines are not always as straight as I'd like them to be.   I think it's because the screen is not stationary, but I'm not sure!

Honestly it's not a huge deal.....because I'm just happy I can "write" on my screen!!



The other cons are mostly setup related.  The whole system is a little cumbersome to set up and takes a lot of patience.  (The Wii remote has to be mounted to the ceiling so it can "see" your screen and pen).  For some unknown reason, the Wii remote sometimes fails to connect to my bluetooth and I have to restart the whole program several times.  This is extremely frustrating when I'm trying to teach a lesson, so many times I've just given up on using the whole thing.   I'm honestly not sure if it's a Wii problem, a software problem, or a bluetooth problem!!  Or perhaps it's just a user problem!  HA HA!

Even with all of the frustrations, I still LOVE my interactive whiteboard!  It's allowed me to do lots of things I never thought I'd be able to do, and has brought a whole new level of interaction to my kiddos. Right now my projector screen is a little too high for my kids to use the pen to interact with a website or a game, but eventually I'd like to lower it to allow them to utilize it more!

A is for Aloha Day!

Each year in Kindergarten we count down the last 26 days of school by having an "ABC Countdown."    It's something that everyone looks forward to and it's so much fun!!

Today was Aloha Day for A!

Hawaiian music and colorful leis were waiting for my kiddos as they arrived in the classroom this morning.  Most kids brought beach towels and dressed in bright tropical colors.  

Take a look at some of the fun we had today!

We made & decorated Aloha flower hats!

We listened to Hawaiian music and read books on our beach towels!

For a special snack we made a fruit salad and enjoyed it outdoors while relaxing in the sun.

One of my wonderful parents made a special surprise for us.....Flip Flops in the sand! 

(AKA Nutter Butter cookies in brown sugar!)

SO COOL!!!

Do you do anything fun to celebrate the last few days of school???  

Pass the Torch Linky

Get Ready for Bloggy Olympics!!!

Join The 3AM Teacher, the Reading Olympians, and over 80 SUPREME education bloggers as we take you through a tour of the Reading Olympians Root Study Program!!

I was really excited to try this program out with my kids. However, I was not sure how my kids would respond or if they would be engaged enough for me to hold their attention.   Something about prefixes and suffixes just didn’t sound interesting.  LOL  Well let me tell you, I was completely WRONG!  My kids were intrigued from the very beginning and this program definitely got them thinking and wanting to learn more!!  

The first thing I did was read my students the picture book that comes with the program.  I had volunteers come up and hold each page, as I read it.  Then we talked about each page as a class.  

The first thing my kids noticed was the ancient Greek person featured on each page.  I believe their exact words were “he looks like someone from the olden days.”  Well that was the perfect opportunity for me to explain that these prefixes and affixes began being used a long time ago to help people understand words better. 

The next observation my kids had, was also pretty funny.  Hearing that prefixes and affixes could change the meaning of words,  several students pointed out that it was like “magic” because magic could change one thing into something else completely!  So at this point I realized that not only were my kids engaged, they were also thinking and making correlations to things that they knew about in their own world.  I thought it was pretty neat!! 

We completed two different lessons from this program—adding the suffix S and adding the prefix UN.  Both lessons were fairly easy for my students to understand and both were easy to complete within a 30 minute time period. 

The students enjoyed working with the puzzle pieces to create words.   I really think the puzzle pieces gave them a visual to help them understand that they were adding something (a piece…a prefix or suffix) to each word to make it completely new!

My students have been hard at work writing complete sentences, so some of them did not want to simply write the new word on the line.  They wanted to write a sentence using the new word.  How could I say no to that??  

Overall the lessons were easy to present to students.  I was really surprised with how engaged my students were as they were learning.  After they had created all the words that were included in the program, they even wanted to make up their own puzzle pieces so they could make even more new words!!  

Discover the program IN ACTION in more K-6th grade classrooms as you Pass the Torch!! Get ideas, discover the progression of the program, and enter the Raffle for a chance to win ONE of the three prizes listed below!!

First Place Winner : Gold Medal

  Prizes: Complete Reading Olympians Program
            $50.00 Amazon Gift Card
            50% off Discount Code for a 1-Day shopping spree at The 3AM Teacher's Etsy store!

Second Place Winner: Silver Medal

   Prizes: $25.00 Amazon Gift Card
              40% off Discount Code for a 1-Day shopping spree at The 3AM Teacher's Etsy store!

Third Place Winner: Bronze Medal

    Prizes: 30% off Discount Code for a 1-Day shopping spree at The 3AM Teacher's Etsy store!

Pass the Torch!!!
Click the image below to visit the next blog

Kindergarten:



Grade 1 & 2






Grade 3 & 4






Grade 5 & 6


    a Rafflecopter giveaway

Easter Egg Hunt with a twist!

Our Spring Break starts on Friday.  We are going to the Zoo tomorrow.  So today we had our class Easter Egg hunt!

This year I did something completely different and it was a lot of fun.  I found this idea on the internet, but can't remember where or when I saw it.  If you know whose idea it is, let me know and I'll gladly give them credit!!

So here's what we did....we basically turned an ordinary egg hunt into something a little more academic.  I know, I know!!  It doesn't sound fun....but I promise my kids had a blast and were way happy with their goodies!!

I asked each student to send in 6 plastic eggs filled with a small toy or candy.  Then I had a parent volunteer come in and write one word on each egg.  The words were:  I, little, have, six, my, eggs.  So 20 eggs had the word I.....20 eggs had the word little......etc.

After the eggs were hidden, I let the students know that they each had to find 6 eggs that had the 6 sight words on them.  To help them, I created a recording sheet where they could cross off each word as they found each egg.   If you'd like to grab it for the future, you can download it here!

They were so funny hunting for the sight word eggs.  I could hear them calling out "has anybody seen the word little".......and "hey I need have"!  It was really cute to watch them trying to find all of the words and making sure they marked each word off on their sheet!!

After students found all 6 of their eggs, they headed to the sidewalk to complete the rest of the sheet.  They had to take out their 6 eggs and unscramble the words to make a sentence (I have my six little eggs.)  This was pretty easy for most students, but others needed a little bit of help.  Then they wrote the sentence on the lines.

The last thing they did before opening any of their eggs was to record the color of each individual egg, by writing the color word in the boxes.

Finally after all of that hard work......they got to open their eggs and see their special treats!  They were so excited!!!  Not a single one complained about having to hunt for sight words or do "work" afterwards.  They actually were laughing and smiling the whole time, so I consider that a WIN - WIN!

Do you do egg hunts with your kids?  How do you do them?  I'm always on the lookout for new ideas!!

New Easter stuff & a FREEBIE!

So as soon as St. Patrick's Day was over, my mind turned to Easter and all the fun things that we are going to do!    There are so many neat things you can do with those plastic Easter eggs!!  Last year when I found some that had three parts that snap together,  I thought I had hit the jackpot!!!  CVC word building suddenly got a whole lot more fun for my kids!

Since Easter is a fun time for me and the kids, I made a couple of new things that I added to my TpT store....and I also made a freebie that is available as well!

Bunny Builder is a CVC Literacy Center where students will build CVC words! There are 20 CVC picture cards and 60 egg letters.  There are also recording sheets for students to record the words they make!  It's available for $2.00 in my TpT store here.  

Easter Egg Match Up is a math center that will help students practice identifying different ways to represent numbers 1-20.  There are 20 number cards and 80 Easter eggs that students will "match up."  This center includes number words, ten frames, addition problems, and sets!  It's available for $3.00 in my TpT store here!

 I also created a forever FREEBIE that you might be able to use in your classroom!  It's a set of cute Easter bunny ten frames for numbers 1-20.  Head over and download it for FREE from my TpT store.

 If you've stayed with me this far you totally deserve a treat!  So guess what?!?   The first 3 people to pin either the Bunny Builder CVC Center or the Easter Match Up Math Center will get it for FREE.  Just leave me a comment and let me know which one you pinned and your email address!  I will send it right over!  Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy (as my kids would say!!).