Spice Up Your Classroom with These Nifty Ideas |
posted by: Melissa | September 21, 2012, 07:00 PM |
Some teachers have started using LiveScribe’s Smartpen in their classroom. This handy little device records everything written by it as well as things said out-loud and can turn them into one of a wide variety of documents. Smartpens are being used as a quick way to record lessons for absent students, and there is at least one math teacher having her students use them to record their work.
Moving from a high tech tool to a low-tech one, sticky notes are utterly versatile and have a wide variety of uses in the classroom. They can be used as tools to group students, used by students to analyze and edit literature pieces. They can be mixed up and then used in makeshift timelines, matching games, or finding groups of things. Need some inspiration on how to use these in your classroom? Check out Edutopia’s recent piece on using sticky notes in the classroom.
Finally, my favorite idea, and it’s not just because I’m ready for a snack! I came across this lesson on Sweet Teachings, but apparently it’s been used by many teachers. This nifty little lesson can be adapted for any grade level from elementary to high school. You pass out cinnamon roll shapes to your students (or they make their own depending on grade level), and they put in the middle a “boring” word. Then, on the spiral around the synonym roll, they write synonyms they could use to replace it. Personally, I would laminate these, keep them in a roll pan or file to let students sift through them while trying to write. Are you doing anything new or innovative in your classroom? Share it with us on our blog, facebook, or twitter page, or send us an email. We’d love to feature what our teachers are doing on an upcoming blog.
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