Yes, I think this is the greatest discovery of this
century semester. I’m so thrilled when I learned this via Free Technology for teachers by Richard Byrne. I’ve learned so many fantastic online resources through his website that sometimes I wonder how does he get the time to do the study, research, writing and teaching!
That said, the Smartboard notebook search engine looks like this
I immediately tried this with the phrase ‘nursery rhymes’ and I found this wonderful website, Northumberland, with a huge collection of nursery rhymes Notebook files and poster sets!
You can click on the little piggy at the left corner for complete set of teaching resources including Smartnote file/ A4 poster + sequencing cards.
I believe the value of teaching young learners classic rhymes as they are usually catchy and rich with daily living phrases. The problem is, however, how do you get the message across without using too much L1? You need pictures, preferably ‘parts’ that are movable so you can develop the storyline during your presentation.
Take ‘Jack and Jill’ for example, the one I just taught in my 2nd graders’ class. What I did then was to hand draw a hill, a stick boy and girl, a bucket of water….and then I got a very messy, ugly sketch…I’m just not that great in art!!
Now this website offers Smartnote file comes with pages of ready-made objects and background, which means you can manipulate them while you explain the chant….in English!
Great!! No more ugly drawing from me!
Easy sequencing and matching activity pages are also included in every file.
This really saves huge amount of time and promotes the L2 usage in the class.
The website also offers sing-along and read-aloud versions for students.