This Teacher Loves SMART Boards, Too

Another week, another challenge. The learning continues despite time constraints. Six preps a day, meetings, family, and homework compete for my time. No doubt, you experience similar competition for your time and energy. Teachers must learn to be great time managers in order to survive.
Last week's challenge from Teachers Love SMART Boards was to use a Touch and Scroll technique created using animations within Notebook 10. The idea is to create a rolling set of questions and/or answers that are accessed by touching a rectangle and having it roll down to the next box. My third graders are reviewing the rules for placing a comma in numbers with 6 and 7 digits. Capitalizing on the Halloween theme, I used a pumpkin template from the gallery and included a howling pumpkin at the bottom of the page at the conclusion of the activity. Since I created the page, I knew where to click to make the box scroll, so I had no problems making the animation work. In retrospect, I should have made the rectangles wider so that the numbers hidden from view wouldn't interfere. Officially, this challenge wasn't completed as required. However, I'm declaring it a success because my students had no problem with the animation. They just wished I'd created more than one page of the scroll and touch so everyone had a turn. That's an easy fix. Once again, a highly engaging activity was created that left learners asking for more. SMART Board wins again!