Keynote for multiple purposes in a Junior Primary Classroom

As a Junior Primary teacher, I understand the importance of daily consolidation of content and concepts, establishing daily routines, and being explicit in my teaching of the curriculum.

I have been utilising Keynote as a tool to incorporate all these aspects into one slide deck that I can adjust each week and use every day in my teaching program.

Firstly, I include a number of routine slides to begin our day. The focus of these slides include key mathematical concepts that allow students daily practise as a class. These slide decks are interactive for student use!

The learning outcomes from this 5 minute daily slide deck include students learning to:

• Practise their presentation skills in front of a group.
• Enhance their reading skills (Each slide has numbered sentences that assist students in tracking. The handy helpers use the eraser tool as a pointer to keep everyone on track).
• Reinforce foundational mathematical concepts such as days of the week, months of the year, seasons, and weather.
• Develop proficiency in reading and using a calendar (identifying important events and placing an object on specific calendar dates).
• Improve their oral language skills (e.g. saying '22nd' instead of '22' in calendar work).
• Take responsibility for their own organisation throughout the day with daily reminders led by their peers. 

In the Writing and Maths slides, I embedded live video directly into the slide deck. The reasoning for this is I found it challenging to have information on my Keynote slides and then having to switch devices or use the camera app to show a video of myself modelling a task or concept. This interruption during my lessons often led to a loss of student focus and required a few minutes to refocus the class, resulting in wasted learning time. Therefore, using live video resolved this problem. No more sitting in a circle and struggling to show the students, and no more device or app switching, which caused further loss of time and student focus.

Lastly, I include slides at the end of my deck that are linked to websites that are essential in every junior primary teacher's toolbox. When opportunities arise throughout the day and spontaneous teaching moments occur (which are always the best teaching moments!), I can quickly bring up a teacher resource with just two clicks to assist in my teaching.

If you find success or discover unique adaptations, share your experiences with me and our community peers. Your insights could inspire and benefit fellow educators.

Attachments

Term 2 2023 Daily Slides OBT example.key

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