Whiteboard Setups

We present the first in an occasional series called 'Whiteboard Setups' - a snappy little title for a slightly nerdy focus on classroom setups that have caught our eye.

Maybe like me you have a love/hate relationship with the interactive whiteboard (more on that in another post to come) but some setups are better than others.

The first one is a neat little setup with some steps, to compensate for the board being fixed a little too high on the wall for the children.

Setup number 2 is a whiteboard in an ICT suite. Very nice but sadly not working when I needed to use it because the bulb had blown! The replacement bulb had been promised to arrive 'today' after being promised to arrive yesterday after being promised to arrive the day before...etc etc. Ho hum...

Finally setup number 3. Plasma screens are good aren't they? No shadows and clear, backlit images. However, sadly this one hadn't been used for a little while, as can be seen. Not everyone loves their whiteboard.

What's your setup like? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it working? Post a comment or drop us a line here.

Coming soon...

I Love Whiteboards / I Hate Whiteboards

George

Beyond the PC and away from the whiteboard

There are extra resources included in our Bim! Bam! Boogaloo! software so that you can take the learning beyond the PC.

You won't always want to work at the whiteboard or PC so we've included printable pdf resources for use away from the computer. Print the resources onto card and cut them out to play your own matching games. You could also laminate the cards to make them last longer.

What we find really useful is combining these practical matching resources with the interactive elements of Bim! Bam! Boogaloo!

For example, here's a very simple activity we've used in a special school but which works just as nicely in the Nursery too.

• One child is at the computer or whiteboard using the 'Sensory' activity.
• Another child sits nearby with the object cards, printed out and laminated.
• The child at the computer presses on the board or clicks on the screen and the child with the cards has to match the object they see by holding up the correct card.
• Continue until all the objects/letters/numbers have been matched.

To make it trickier, you can ask the children to match the letter cards to the alphabet objects on the screen, or vice versa.

Visit our Extra Resources page for some free downloadable high frequency words and 1-100 number cards and try out Bim! Bam! Boogaloo! for free here.

VIDEO - Bim! Bam! Boogaloo! - Matching Pairs

Continuing this week's focus on that old quiz show classic 'Pelmanism' aka 'Concentration' or Matching Pairs, here's a video demonstrating some of the ways the Matching Pairs activity can be used in the classroom.




This card game seems to have only a tenuous link to 'Pelmanism - the memory system', devised by William Joseph Ennever in the 1890s, at least partly based on the work of Christopher Louis Pelman. Pelmanism was a memory training system which, according to the advertising of the time, could banish 'forgetfulness', 'depression', 'weakness of will', 'moodiness', 'unnecessary fears and phobias' and 'mental stagnation', whilst developing positive qualities such as 'optimism', 'decisiveness', 'cheerfulness', 'moral courage', 'social charm and tact' and 'personal magnetism'.

We can't make any such promises concerning Bim! Bam! Boogaloo! and the Matching Pairs activity, but we can promise that it's fun and, as you'll see in the video, can be used in a variety of ways to develop children's memory skills and cognitive skills.

Click here to try the Matching Pairs activity.