Smartboards in the Kindergarten Classroom

As I mentioned in my last blog, my students are exposed to the Smartboard in our classroom from day one. As students enter the classroom on their first day of kindergarten, I greet them at the door, and invite them to find their nameplate on one of the circle tables in our classroom. Students begin a first day of school coloring sheet, and I call each student up to the front of the room to take a look at our Smartboard. Each student must find his or her name, and slide their name to a lunch choice. This serves several purposes.

First, students are practicing name recognition (which may sound funny to anyone who hasn’t worked with this young of students). Several students enter kindergarten unable to identify their own name. Of those students that can identify their name, several will mistake their name for a student whose name begins with the same letter. This repetitive routine of locating their name on the Smartboard is a great way to solidify name recognition and name spelling. Second, students are letting me know whether they need to order a school lunch or they brought a lunch from home. This saves me time when it comes to turning in lunch count to the cafeteria. Third, students are taking attendance for me. I can quickly peek at the list of student names that have not been moved to determine which students are not at school… Of course, they are five years old, so I always double check in case they just forgot this part of their morning routine!

Here is the Smartboard slide I use each morning:

Aside from aiding in daily routines, I use the Smartboard to reinforce skills from our curriculum. During our Language Arts block, the Smartboard is used for several games and activities. Smart Notebook has tons of backgrounds and themes available to utilize in the classroom. One of my favorite resources is the lined handwriting paper slide. I use this resource on almost a daily basis. I can quickly pull up the slide to model letter writing, letter formation, number writing, etc.  It is also a great resource to have the students practice their writing. Many students become frustrated when they make a mistake on paper and have to erase. Even the best eraser leaves smudges or wrinkles, and some kindergarten students even leave holes in their paper. The eraser tool on the Smartboard makes it easy to erase and fix mistakes quickly, without frustration. My students are more willing to try, and try again if it isn’t quite perfect.

Lined Handwriting Paper on Smart Notebook:

We also utilize the e-gagdet factory from Promethean Planet.  My personal favorite is the Magnetic Letter game, which allows students to build words.

You can find the magnetic letters and other games and resources at Promethean Planet.

We can't forget about math! Math is extremely important in our kindergarten world, and I wouldn't give up the opportunity to get my kids excited about practicing math skills. We use our Smartboard to reinforce all kinds of math skills.

Here are a few of my favorite math activities on the Smartboard:

 

 



I hope these screen grabs from my Smartboard collection will inspire you to utilize your Smartboard for daily routines and curriculum support!