Interactive whiteboard resources are a great way for teachers to engage classrooms in learning. While many teachers are spending hours a day creating their own activities for their interactive whiteboards, there are tons of free sources to help teachers learn about and use IWBs with students to further their use of technology in the classroom.
Here is a list of some great interactive whiteboard resources and activities guaranteed to stimulate learning:
TeacherLED – TeacherLED is a site dedicated to making the use of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) easier and more productive. This comprehensive site features resources to use with IWBs in math, English, and geometry.
SMART Exchange – This SMART Board interactive whiteboard site provides several lesson plans and activities for teachers to use in the classroom. SMART lessons are available for a variety of ages and subjects.
Topmarks – With some of the best free educational materials for IWBs, Topmarks is a great resource for finding IWB lesson plans and activities. This educational site also features teacher resources, educational sites for classroom, and homework help.
Eduscapes – This guide to interactive whiteboards explains different activities and resources that can be used with IWBs. Eduscapes is a good starting place for teachers who are just beginning to use this technology in the classroom.
Promethean Planet Teaching Resources – Promethean also invites members of their community to share their lessons and activities for their whiteboards.
Mimio Connect Lesson Plans – If your classroom has a Mimio system, find lessons by searching keywords, sorting by grade or choosing your preferred subject.
Interactive Whiteboard Games & Activities
PBS – PBS provides a collection of fun, interactive SMART Board games. All of the games featured on this site are age appropriate and screened by educators.
MathFrame.co.uk – This site, created by a school teacher, houses several interactive math games specifically designed for IWBs. All activities are aimed at reinforcing mathematical concepts and skills.
BBC History Game – BBC offers several interactive activities that can be used with interactive whiteboards. This Famous People history game is a great way to teach elementary children about historical figures.
Scholastic – Scholastic provides interactive whiteboard lessons for phonics, math, science, and history. This site also features a search engine for finding more lessons across North America.
Crickweb.co.uk – Crickweb.co.uk provides 15 free resources for use with interactive whiteboards to demonstrate technology in the classroom. These math activities are designed to teach elementary students the basics of math.
Math Playground – The Math Playground offers interactive math activities for middle schoolers. These games and activities work well for teachers who want to engage the entire class.
Classbrain – This game site features several interactive math games that work with IWBs. A fun game worth trying with students is Regrouping.
Funbrain – Funbrain offers several interactive educational games for use with IWBs. These fun games cover a range of subjects and grades.
Kerpoof – Kerpoof is an educational interactive website from the Walt Disney Company that can be used with IWBs. This site is a great way for children to create, discover and learn.
Xpeditions – Xpeditions from National Geographic provides an atlas that can be used on interactive whiteboards. This atlas explores every region of the world.
Periodic Table – This interactive periodic table site was designed for educational use by elementary to high school students. The site works with interactive whiteboards to introduce and engage children in learning the element table.
Archiving Early America – Archiving Early America features a range of short videos on American history that are perfect for use on IWBs.
Memorial Hall Museum – This free online museum features a complete interactive website for teachers. IWB teachers can view collections, online exhibits, and games.
Place the State – Place the State is an interactive geography game from Bensguide.gpo.gov. This resource can be used with IWBs to teach students about U.S. states.
More Unique, Cool Whiteboard Resources Students Love
Engaging students in some classroom topics can be difficult. But with the help of your interactive whiteboard you can get and keep your students interested in what you are trying to teach them. These activities are all especially cool.
Scale of the Universe – This cool update to an old tool lets you scroll from the size of a person and head out into space – viewing the solar system, galaxy and eventually the entire universe. Or zoom smaller and smaller down to sub atomic particles. This new version is clickable – and tells you a litle more about the different planets and objects you can see as you drag the slider to view bigger or smaller objects.
Stellarium – This free planetarium software is perfect for astronomy lessons. Stellarium displays a realistic 3D sky, complete with planets, major moons, more than 600,000 stars, and constellations from 10 cultures.
Illuminations – Created by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Illumination provides more than 100 interactive math games and activities for students in grades pre-K through 12.
FreeRice – FreeRice is an amazing trivia game from the United Nations World Food Program. Rice is donated to hungry people every time visitors answer trivia questions correctly. Trivia categories include art, chemistry, math, English vocabulary and grammar, geography, and language learning.
Signed Stories – Signed Stories features videos of stories being told with sign language and subtitles. Although the site is designed primarily for deaf children it would be useful to any classroom interested in learning more about sign language.
Sheppard Software – Sheppard Software provides a wide range of free educational web games for students. Covered topics include animals, science, chemistry, health, history, math, and vocabulary.
Fit Brains – Designed by a clinical neuropsychologist and brain health expert, Fit Brains is an online gaming platform with puzzles and other “brain games.” Players can track their progress and win trophies and achievements when they do well.
Spelling City – Spelling City is a free online learning platform with 10 learning games and more than 40,000 spelling words. The site also offers how-to videos to help teachers integrate Spelling City into the curriculum.
The Eco Zoo – The Eco Zoo is a 3D environment that can be used to teach students about environment, ecology, and eco-friendly living. Content can be viewed in Japanese or English.
NASA Space Place – This award-winning NASA website is a good place to find videos, animations, and games that teach kids about space science and technology. Nearly all of the materials on this site would work well with an interactive whiteboard.
Science Websites for Your Interactive Whiteboard
Google Body Browser – This is Google Maps for the human body! Google Body is a detailed 3D model of the body. You can peel back anatomical layers, zoom in, click to identify anatomy, or search for muscles, organs, bones and more. At the moment this won’t work in most web browsers, you will need to get the beta of the new Firefox or Chrome, but keep an eye out later this year for an update.
The Children’s University of Manchester – This excellent resource is aimed at KS2 and covers subjects such as electricity, health and space. There are a number of interactive Flash games that you can use, and even better they come with a “full screen” option which makes then much easier to display and use on your board. There is also information about real scientists working at the university and what research they do.
Succeeding with Science – Created by Sellafield Nuclear Power Station, this website contains many different interactive activities and downloadable resources. There are resources here for both primary and secondary teachers on a number of different topics. There’s also information about the power station itself.
National STEM Centre – This site contains a wealth of resources to support the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths in Key stages 1 – 5. There are interactive resources, which demonstrate technology in the classroom, but also downloadable PowerPoint presentations. There are some excellent resources produced by the Association for Science Education (ASE) as part of Science year which are now archived on the site. You need to register to download all the resources, but it is free to do so.
ChemCollective Virtual Lab – The ChemCollective is a digital library of online activities for KS3/KS4 chemistry teachers which aims to engage students in more authentic problem-solving activities than those found in most textbooks.
Their virtual lab will look slightly familiar to anyone who has ever used Crocodile Chemistry. It’s a free simulation which allows mixing of different chemicals and provides information such as pH and temperature as the chemical reaction takes place. Comprehensive guides are available on the site which explains what to do.
Their virtual lab will look slightly familiar to anyone who has ever used Crocodile Chemistry. It’s a free simulation which allows mixing of different chemicals and provides information such as pH and temperature as the chemical reaction takes place. Comprehensive guides are available on the site which explains what to do.
As always, virtual simulations should not replace actually doing the experiments for real. But sometimes, for revision purposes, or for times when a lab is not available, being able to access these kind of online simulations can be very useful.
O2 Learn – O2 is building a video library of great revision lessons, from teachers across the country. Teachers can submit videos of themselves delivering short guides to different topics. Students can also request help on difficult areas. Would be good for revision.
Interactive Whiteboard Activities to Teach Music
MoodStream – Moodstream is a really interesting tool. It combines images (from Getty Images) and audio tracks to suit your mood. Would be good to investigate how different sounds and tunes affect our how we feel. Choose from combinations of happy/sad, calm/lively, warm/cool etc. Is really interesting to leave running for a while and see what it does.
Making Music from Help Kidz Learn – Simply press a piano key or run your finger down the keys on a touch screen, to play the notes. Mouse users can click on the keys. The keys are in different bright colours and marked with the note they play.
Virtual Drum Kit – Ken Brashear has made a giant drum kit that you play simply by hitting the different hotspots on the image. Very therapeutic.
Music Match Game – This game helps you learn how to play the piano and read music. You can learn the notes, learn the keys or both.
Drum Machine – An interactive drum machine that lets you build up different beats to create your own drum track which you can then export as a swf file.
Poisson Rouge Piano – A simple interactive piano that lets you produce a tune and then play it back. Will show the musical notation at the same time.
Muxicall – A collaborative “wall of music” Click on the notes to play a track, but other people can also be using it at the same time and play music between you!
Toy Theatre Music – 4 different games here. Compose your own music, create drum beats, music maker and piano puppet. Try them out!
Basic Reading & Modern Foreign Language IWB Resources
Pic-Lits – Drag words onto photographs to describe the scene or mood. The default language is english, but could be used in other languages in freestyle mode.
Word Magnets – This resource from Triptico could again have uses in many different subjects since it is quite open-ended. Use it to create drag and drop sentences in your chosen language.
Ashcombe School – GCSE French Videos – Some very useful videos here for french teaching from Ashcombe School in Surrey. Also check out their Primary MFL resources. Videos are a little small, but come with a quiz. May be better for self-study rather than IWB use. Right click on the video to play it full-screen.
CrickWeb Spanish / French – Crickweb has a wealth of great resources for all subjects, and that includes languages. Check out their KS2 Spanish and French resources.
BBC Learning Zone clips – The BBC is always a good place to look for video resources for classroom teaching. They have videos on all subjects, including French, German and Spanish at both Primary and Seconday level.
Bleu, Blanc, Rouge… – Bleu, Blanc, Rouge is a website for teachers wishing to access resources for teaching French in the Primary School. The site contains songs & rhymes, language games, art & seasonal ideas, tongue twisters, recipes & links to French stories on the net.
World of Teaching – Lots of powerpoints to adapt and adopt for language teaching (and other subjects) and demonstrate technology in the classroom.
Share your favorite IWB resources in the comments section!
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