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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Calendar Board V. Promethean Board Link Up

Help!!!

Okay, here’s my dilemma  quandary. I’m giving serious thought to doing away with my calendar board and putting my entire calendar routine onto my Promethean board and creating a calendar book for my students. I feel like I’d save so much space…but I’m still not sure. Here’s where my beautiful blogging friends come in.

 

Pictures of my calendar board this year.

IMG_1484    IMG_1485

 

IMG_1486   IMG_1487

If you have a blog…please consider linking up with me???

I’d really like to explore the pros and cons of Calendar board vs. Promethean board.

I’d like to know which do you prefer?

What’s are the benefits of using a calendar board/promethean board?

If you don’t have a blog, not a problem. How about leaving a comment telling me your ideas.

To make it even sweeter…if you link up with me, I’ll use the random number generator and the winning blog can get any one product from my TpT Store.

If you leave a comment…I’ll use the random number generator and that winner can pick any one item from my TpT store. See, it’s a sweet deal all around.

Can’t wait to hear your ideas! BTW links will close in one week. Make sure when you link up you blog about calendar board vs. Promethean board.

48 comments:

  1. I teach 2 1/2 day kindergarten classes. I did a calendar book starting in October. It was so engaging. The kids lOVED it. I started with a basic calendar to trace, graph for weather and a word of the day. I added a page for birthdays/ lost teeth, a math problem of the week, a word family of the week, and a mystery number of the day. I added 1 page each month. We started calendar with a Mr Harry song which gave them time to find the right page. The only problem is with absent kids, but I had the teacher helper of the day, try to catch up the absent kid(s). The only things on my calendar wall are the calendar and the 100's chart and stick collecter to count up to 100. I will not go back to the whole class watching 1 person or me do the calendar routine. I loved the calendar books!

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  2. I am so glad that you are asking this question! I've been toying with the same idea myself. If I can figure out my SMARTBoard and create a quality calendar folder, I may give it a try. If it doesn't work, I can always go back to the calendar wall. The difficult part for me is to create the calendar on the SMARTBoard...didn't get any long-ranging help with it. The tech person at our school is stretched to her max. Good luck with your decision and I can't wait to read what other's post!
    Catherine

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  3. I teach 1st. This year I switched to doing the calendar on the smartboard (thanks to J. Meacham!) and each of the students have a calendar binder that keeps everyone involved in the calendar activity! I LOVE it and will not go back to the old way of doing calendar! Can't wait to hear what others are doing! Cathy
    beagle2love@hotmail.com

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  4. Do it!!! I would never go back to the "old" way of doing calendar! The kids do calendar books, and they are so engaged, and they learn so much! I'll link up my post about my calendar books.

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  5. I've been doing my calendar on the Promethean Board for 3 years now. I LOVE IT! You're right about the other calendar taking up a lot of bulletin board space. I still have a small board with a monthly calendar on it (I need it to remember what day it is!)
    One thing I love about using the P. Board is linking songs from iTunes to my calendar time. No more flipping through CDs to find "Macarena Math"
    My flipchart is on my school laptop, so I can't get to it this second, but I'll try to send it to you tomorrow.
    Just Add Clipart

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  6. You guys are reading my mind! I don't have a smart board but was cutting and pasting a mock calendar/math journal for my kids to do their work in versus them sitting and watching. A question to you all is are yall making templates for your students to glue into their journals or having them write everything down?

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  7. I love my Calendar Folders!!! I use them with both but will do it more with my smart board this year. That calendar wall just takes up way to much space. With the calendar folders my kids can do calendar with the their eyes closed! lol


    Check them out...
    http://lessonplandiva.blogspot.com/2011/05/secret-to-successful-calendar-calendar.html

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  8. Great Question!! If we had the technology I would switch over to having the calendar on the smart board. I would be able to ask students multiple questions, have them change and move things and I think it would be easier for all to see. But since we do not have this technology (1 smart board for 1000 kids in the computer lab) I will continue to have my calendar routine on the board. I also use J Meacham's calendar ideas.

    Primary Connections

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  9. Well I did both this year. I wasn't sure which I wanted so I wanted something I could fall back on if it didn't work. I didn't have a Calendar folder, book. I found the smartboard calendar on the smart site and the kids loved it. The loved watching the 100's board turn different colors as they touched it. I was still planning on putting both up this year but after reading this I might just use the smart board only. I would love to see some of these calendar books, folders as well.
    Tammy

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  10. I've been pondering the same thing! Our daily calendar routine doesn't allow the kids to truly understand the workings of a calendar. My only worry with switching over to the Promethean board is that the month and day words won't be available for them to see when writing... then I thought I could make a writer's toolkit as a resource instead. I'm rambling here because I've been thinking about changing mine-- if I change to the Pro board I will add in calendar folders or else it will turn into the same daily calendar wall routine. Phew, I hope that makes sense.

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  11. I switched my calendar to my smartboard this year and my students loved it. They love using the smartboard and most were paying attention, but I was thinking about doing the calendar folders next year to make sure everyone is engaged. I also left up my regular calendar and school count up.

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  12. I am also considering using my Smartboard for calendar. This will be the first time that I have had a board in my room all the time and I am really looking forward to it. I've been collecting notebook files for calendars and I'm trying to piece together the elements I like the best. Calendar books sounds like a great idea, too!
    Carol

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  13. Our district requires that all classrooms have calendar math posted on a bulletin board for students to see and refer to even if the teacher does calendar math on the promethean board.

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  14. Your calendar looks wonderful. I am a big techie, but there is something to be said for having a calendar up during the day so the children can use it as a reference. What is your plan if you have a sub with the Smartboard?

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  15. Many wonderful points! Now that I am picturing the class I had, I can see how many times they have gone to the calendar on a daily basis. Our kids always wanted to know when is the field trip, when is it my birthday (or any other event). We marked those days by adding a bright colorful index card tab higher than the calendar piece. We added a white index card behind the current day. As part of our morning work, we would write on the board Today is Saturday, Mach 23, 2001. Our kids would realize that it is wrong and look at the calendar for the correct information...

    Love reading all of these! Thank you
    Primary Connections

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  16. My board was installed two days before school ended, so I did not get to use it. For this first year of using it I plan on keeping it on the board for two reasons: 1) I have yet to find a calendar site for the whiteboard 2) I like the idea of having the information available through out the day for students to reference for writing.

    Maybe once I more comfortable with it I will change my mind.

    P.S. I love your blog

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  17. I used my SMARTboard to do calendar this year. I definitely liked that I didn't have to put up a large calendar wall. A few weeks into the school year, we realized that we missed the actual calendar hanging in the room. So, we put up a small pocket chart calendar that took up very little space. The kids used this a lot throughout the day, so I'll be sure to save a little spot for that again next year. I did not do the calendar books but I love that idea!! I'll be researching those this summer. As far as calendars for the SMARTboard, SMART exchange has a lot of templates already created. You can just add to them as you need.

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  18. I would recommend the calendar wall on the computer. I know that Lakeshore Learning has one that is only $20. But it doesn't have everything you have, like tallies. I have offices that my children used as references plus they used their calendar folders if they needed to reference something about field trip, birthday, etc. I laminate the papers in the folder and then we use the new dry erase or white board crayons. This is much more interactive for the children and they learn the content better. Plus it is easier to incorporate all the songs instead of trying to find the right song on your ipod.

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  19. I have been using my Smartboard for a year now to do Morning Calendar. I like the way it goes and feel it is more fun for the kids. And you know when kids like what they are doing they learn more. It also frees up a lot of wall space to use for displaying student work or some kind of working bulletin board. It does concern me that I don't have a calendar in the room for the kids to refer to during the day. I think I will continue to use my smartboard this year, but will also put up a calendar. You can see a sample of one of my morning calendars at http://gkestner.com/teachers.html Just scroll down to the middle of the page to see and Adobe file for the August calendar.

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  20. We are getting smartboards this year and we are so excited. We have been having the discussion about the calendar. I love reading these posts. Thank you for sharing all your ideas. Any asuggestions on smartboard sites will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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  21. Although I love the idea of freeing up wall space, I am required by my district to have the calendar and all of its pieces up on the wall. I love the idea of a calendar notebook or journal. I think my kiddos would be much more engaged during our morning calendar routine. I will for sure look into that! I am new to the world of teacher blogs. Although, I do have a classroom blog of my own for my kiddos and their families. I am learning so much from everyone! Thank You!!

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  22. i think what i will do is start out using a calendar board for the beginning of the year. i have considered doing a calendar book at the beginning of the year also. then i will introduce a smartboard/promethean board in january. it'll mix things up a bit to keep them engaged in it :)

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  24. I recently had the same problem. I had a great calendar area in my first grade classroom and had a very hard time deciding if I wanted to make the switch. In the end I decided to because I felt like it was the best thing for my classroom. The kids love being on the smartboard, it gives them extra practice and I actually think it is much more interactive than my old calendar time. I saved all of my items from calendar...and I found great slides from promethean planet that I pieced together to make my own custom calendar that fit the needs of my students. I would definitely look into that, best of luck!!

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  25. Ok, I teach first and I've been doing calendar on my SmartBoard for 3 years now. And yes, you do want to keep some sort of a calendar on the wall for quick reference. But I'm totally against having kids keep their own calendar notebooks. I tried that one year. I put a lot of time into preparing these and I found there were some kids who went ahead and finished everything before other kids even turned to the right page! It was NOT a good use of time. I try to keep all kids involved while doing calendar. I draw sticks and that person gets to do only one page of the calendar. Then someone else does the next, and so on. And I give the other kids dry erase boards. They participate and write what the board helper is doing and hold it up for me to see. I can quickly scan for number reversals, misspellings of day names, etc.
    Another tip is that I change how I do calendar from month to month. I start off the year with a lot of pages and then cut back as they get more proficient. I would be happy to share my calendar but am not quite sure how as I don't have a blog yet and am not sure how else to do it. If any of you have ideas, please let me know. I'll be happy to share. No sense reinventing the wheel, right?
    Thanks so much for this blog! It is incredibly helpful!

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  26. Wow! I am hoping to get a SMARTboard this year. I never imagined to do calendar time on the smartboard. I would love to see it in action...anyone have video???? I just love technology:)

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  27. I feel like my calendar area takes up a lot of space, too. I have a Mimio, similar to a SmartBoard, so maybe I'll do it that way. I read that someone else uses the calendar binder which is something I want to add next year. It's definitely worth considering.

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  28. Okay, so when I started reading the posts I thought "How cool!" I can do that. But then I got to the post about having a sub in the room. Hmmm. My computer is locked up when I have a sub. So now maybe I'll go with my good ol' calendar wall along with the books you all were talking about. So I'm off in search of an example of "the calendar book"!! :o)
    Cindy
    ccfirstteacher@gmail.com

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  29. I have really been thinking about this over the summer. I have used my Smartboard for calendar for the past 2 years. While I really do love it, sometimes it became too much. Totally my fault. I found all of these cool pages and skills that I knew that they just had to have. Soooooo....my plan for next year is to start the day with a morning meeting/calandar wall. I have always kept my calendar wall up for writing anyway. It is very needed with Saxon math. I also want to add a calendar notebook and task question cards as a wrap up of the calendar. This will solve the problem of the previous poster whose kids didn't stay on the same page. Thanks for the heads up. Later in the day I will have a math meeting on the smartboard. It will focus on those math skills that we need that are not directly included in our daily Saxon lesson.

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  30. Do It! I love my promethean board! I teach kindergarten. I have created my own calendar flipchart, and I would never go back. I have everything that I had on my calendar wall and then some. It is just as, or more, interactive as a calendar wall. I love it, because it is cute, colorful, interactive, and fun! I would be happy to share with you, if you need an idea of what to do.

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    1. Hello! First time teaching Kindergarten and first time using the Promethean board! I see this post is from a while ago but if you still do this and have pictures I would love to see it.

      care4kids90@gmail.com

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  31. I don't have a promethean board or a smart board, just an infocus projector and a large whiteboard that I use as a screen. I made a years worth of ppts and I love the ease with which I can move through calendar time. I have added so many things to my calendar time, songs, graphs, question of the day, birthdays, weekly events, it goes on and on. We are supposed to get some smartboards in our school for the coming school year, but I won't be holding my breath. I do keep a large calendar on my bulletin board to give the children a permanent reference. I'll be glad to share a sample on my blog if there is enough interest. You'll have to email me.
    Linda
    iluvkdg@gmail.com
    ateacherstouch.blogspot.com

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  32. I am so glad to see this discussion. I am currently converting everything over to my promethean board. I heard someone say the other day that we are competeing every day for our student's attention. They are all growing up in such an interactive world. This just makes a way of keeping the students engaged while learning! We also do calendar binders. Some good places that share page ideas are www.jmeacham.com from Jessica Meacham and Shari Sloane at www.kidscount1234.com Good luck to Everyone!

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  33. This year I switched my traditional calendar to my ActivBoard, as we had just received them two weeks before school was out lasts year. WE LOVE IT! I will never go back and the space it saves is amazing! I, too, am going to do the calendar books this coming year with my new group of firsties! Can't wait!

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  34. I LOVE using my SMARTBoard for daily calendar activities. I have also used a calendar binder with my students which they enjoy. I used pages from Shari Sloan at kidscount1234. The key was to introduce the pages of the calendar slowly! I'm not real sure what next year will bring as my district has adopted SAXON math.

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  35. I did my calendar on the Smartboard this year. I loved not having to put up all that "stuff"! Plus adding the music in really made it easy. I did have calendar books also - check out Mrs. Meachum! We do Saxon Math so I make the board go along with each month set up from Saxon. I'm not sure if I will do the calendar journals next year or not. They got bored with it. I think I might wait to introduce them till later in the year... take turns on the board and then add the books when they are more independent. I liked the fact that I could add the same pages into the smartboard that were in their books. That was helpful! The only thing I hung up was the hundred chart. Enjoy!!

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  36. Oh. My. Goodness. I really needed this! It helps to know I'm not alone with my questions about this issue. Thanks for all the ideas! I teach K and have a SmartBoard, but kept my calendar board up last year. Just might have to add the calendar binder to beef up my math instruction. Between math workstations and this...I'm starting to feel overwhelmed! But love all the inspiration!

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  37. I am really interested in trying this, but no one is addressing what to do on the days you have a sub. Diane

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  38. To be honest on the days when I have a sub...if I put my calendar on my Active board....we will catch up on the calendar the next day. That's how I did last year even with a calendar board...sometimes the sub would forget...or just not show up and my class had to be split up.
    Ms. A

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  39. When we first got our Smartboards I was very reluctant to give up my calendar wall, but now I would never go back. I love using my SB for calendar and weather. My kids love going to the local news station website to check the weather and see the forecast. When I am absent,I have my aide log in to my account so my sub can have access to my calendar. I have never had a problem with having a sub have access to my computer.
    I havent used the calendar books, but would love to incorporate them someday. I would be willing to share my calendar routine with anyone if interested. email me at: kindertchr01@yahoo.com

    Sarah :)

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  40. Sorry I missed officially linking up. I posted my thoughts the other day, but forgot to link up. Oh well...
    Here is a link to my post:
    http://firstgradeescapades.blogspot.com/2011/06/calendar-math-vs-promethean-board-linky.html

    Love your screen shots of your Promethean uploads. Headed there now to look for them.

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  41. I love using the Interwrite Board for calendar, as do the students. I still have a smaller version of the calendar (1/3 the original size) on the wall, as there are times we need to refer to it, with 100 chart, helper, date, etc. Also have students have their own monthly calendar books, so that they are actively involved. I created some of my own pages and got others from kidscount1234.com. Each month we added some new skill or review. This way we were constantly spiraling. It is also a great way to have songs and the weather from a web link.

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  42. I have used my SMARTBOARD for calendar for the past 2 years and LOVE it! It is so interactive and fun for the students. I also have a small traditional calendar wall next to it for the kids to reference throughout the day and for subs to use, along with a CD with our songs for the day. I am able to link songs and activities into my SMARTBOARD activities and the kids are so engaged. I have not used binders, but am thinking about starting them this year.

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  43. I missed linking up!! :o( I blogged about it anyway--if you'd like to take a peek!
    Karen :o)
    Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten

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  44. I missed the linky party, but I used the active slate last year for calendar and I was not as consistent as I had been previously. My students did love it though. I will try again this year, but I will be posting a calendar and few other items in the classroom. One of your links had a recording sheet and I am thinking of having my firsties record something each day in their math journals so it holds them a little more accountable. Promethean planet has a lot of things already created so you won't have to start from scratch. My favorite was the interactive 100's board where students could drag counters over to highlight coutning by 2's, 5's and 10's.
    SaylorsLog

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  45. This response may be way late but I have created Calendars for Promethean Board that include calendar, weather, days in school, and usually about 20 pages of review type activities to choose each day. My entire calendar time is done with this one flipchart. If you would like me to email you one of my calendars to try out I would be happy to share!

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    Replies
    1. Hi! I realize this was posted YEARS ago but if you still have this I would love to learn different ways people do the calendar on the Promethean Board! This is my first year with it and I'm not sure where to start.

      care4kids90@gmail.com

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