Home Catalogue Software Curriculum Companions

Fun, supplemental onscreen activities to learn the basic needs and characteristics of plants!

Compatible with

In this unit from the Curriculum Companions series, students will learn that plants make their own food, grow and change, and do not move on their own. They will learn the basic needs of all plants (sunlight, water, air, and a place to grow). The life cycle of a plant and the function of different plant parts will be introduced through the example of the bean plant.

What are Curriculum Companions?

Curriculum Companions are topic-specific and engaging computer-based activities to supplement instruction in K-2 topics. They are designed to be used with any curriculum and academic standards you currently use to guide your instruction.

Curriculum Companions support goals in reading, writing and application of new information with more than 18 computer-based activities that align with content-area curriculum and academic standards.

They are appropriate for students of all ages and abilities with academic goals in the K-2 grade-level.

Features and Benefits

• Every activity can be adapted with different levels of support.
• Every interactive, onscreen activity is designed with the teacher and student in mind.
• Activities align with content-area curriculum while incorporating reading and writing supports that provide students with opportunities to practise and demonstrate what they have learned.
• The same types of activities are offered on different topics so students become familiar with the activity structure – even when working with new subjects!
• Onscreen instructions guide you through applying changes to existing activities so you can modify and adjust them to suit different goals and abilities – with or without substantial knowledge of the Boardmaker Software Family.

Curriculum Companions are designed to be used with multiple students and teachers can track their individual progress with student management tools. You can evaluate student progress and performance with student and teacher-friendly summary reports.

How do Curriculum Companions work?

Each of the eight Curriculum Companions includes activities focused on reading, writing, practising and quizzing, all with adjustable levels of complexity and prompting support to suit each student’s individual needs and goals.

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• Reading Supports
  Reading supports for successful reading comprehension include text-to-speech, visual supports, interactive glossaries, idea maps and automatic visual and auditory prompting and reinforcement that:
  • Expand vocabulary as students learn new concepts
  • Improve reading comprehension using photographs, illustrations and symbols
  • Promote student and teacher interaction to build background knowledge and establish links to previous learning experiences.
• Writing Supports
  Writing support for successful expression of learning include a range of activities like errorless writing grids, sentence building templates and target word banks to:
  • Help students demonstrate understanding of content
  • Motivate students to try more challenging methods of written expression
  • Increase confidence with unique activities that suit individual skills
• Practice
  Through practice tests, students can demonstrate what they have learned and get feedback on their progress. Practice activities include:
  • sorting
  • classifying
  • labelling
  • fill-in-the-blank
  • multiple choice
  • true/false questions and more.
• Quiz
  Teachers can use the provided quizzes to evaluate student understanding of new concepts as they track progress.

Requirements and ResourcesexpandClick to collapse

Prices

	Code	Media	Platform	$NZ Price	$NZ GST
	Curriculum Companion 8: All About Plants - Single User Licence	Requires Boardmaker Plus!, Boardmaker Plus Player or Boardmaker with Speaking Dynamically Pro version 6 or higher
	MJM1MJ370	CD-ROM	Mac, Win	$170.00	$25.50