At my school, all of the classrooms are outfitted with a wall-mounted, computer-connected overhead projector. I've found so many ways to use this technology to enhance my lessons that I think if I didn't have a district-provided projector, I'd buy one (like the kind that can sit on a cart). Managing Routines Using a combination of the projector and Google Slides, I'm able to manage some of our complicated routines with minimal effort. During math I project a slideshow that starts with a funky math song (there are so many of these on YouTube! We particularly love Jack Hartman's exercise videos), followed by the content of my mini lesson (more on that below), followed by an opportunity to choose a math goal for the day. During the work time in the workshop I project slides showing where each person should be during each of our math rotations, including a digital countdown that tells us when to switch. The countdowns are also YouTube videos, which you can easily embed directly into a Google Slide. It turns out that YouTube has countdown videos for basically any denomination of time; I particularly favor ones that show a slowly eroding pie chart indicating how much time is left. At the end of our math period, we consider two reflection slides that mirror the goal setting slide and ask us what we did well and what we need to improve in the future. Some days I have students share their reflections with a partner, and on others I call on individuals to share with the group. Using slides, rather than charts, for tracking some routines also facilitates flexibility in those routines. I've been struggling recently with differentiating my writing instruction to serve the needs of all of my writers, the majority of whom churn out several sentences and a few heavily-labeled pictures at every writing session, but some of whom still struggle to choose every letter. One solution I've tried is teaching one mini-lesson to the majority while a small group (who also struggle with sustained attention) spends some extra time at reading centers. When I dismiss the large group to work independently, I call the small group to the rug for a more heavily supervised guided practice session. Slides telling everyone where they should be make trying out this routine--and switching up who goes where and works with whom--much easier. ![]() Slides also help us make time for fun! At one point in the year I realized that I wasn't actually reading an entire picture book every day. Sure, I'd read an excerpt to demonstrate a teaching point, but often I was stretching one book out for three or four days. I worried that a read aloud for pleasure would take up too much time (I was wrong and it's an extremely valuable use of time), especially since some students really struggle with whole-body listening during read aloud. Slides to the rescue! I added a slide that displayed a twelve minute countdown for reading aloud (including a trusty eroding pie chart)and explained to my students that I really wanted us to be able to share a book for fun each day, but that we had limited time to do so--and that when the timer was up reading time was done. Students began encouraging one another to get to the rug and to focus, because they understood their responsibility in determining whether we got to the end of the book that day. Enhancing Guided Practice Projecting slides also allows for more interaction. During our math mini lesson, I use the slides to provide the base for the math work we are doing--such as an empty number bond, or a photo that they need to model with math, or an empty equation with spaces for numbers and a circle to fill in with the appropriate operation. Then, because I'm projecting on a magnetic whiteboard, students are able to show their work with dry erase markers and/or magnets. P.S. I Still Love You, Too, PostIt!
A cursory look at my classroom Instagram account ( @bilingualexplorers, viewable on the right side of the blog homepage!) shows that my class spends a ton of time constructing, revising, and referencing physical paper charts. I'm not ready to co-construct slides with my students yet (though that is definitely on the horizon), so they aren't providing the same shared writing experience as paper charts. Plus, I only project the slides I think we need to reference at any given time. Paper charts hang all day, every day, for weeks or, in some cases, months. Students access them whenever they realize they are relevant, at times and in ways that I would never devise.
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AuthorI'm Ms. Howland. I teach first grade in Spanish and English in a transitional bilingual model. Click any photo to learn more!
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