K-5 Technology Lessons

5th Grade Digital Photograhy

2012-01-09T08:22:00.002-06:00

January 29 is National Puzzle Day
1. Have students take pictures of a class of an activity around the school.
2. Save pictures to a shared folder
3. Insert into Microsoft Paint.
4. Add lines for Puzzle shapes.
5. Cut out pieces and glue down to construction paper.
6. Frame your puzzle using ribbon, buttons or both. Use your imagination.

National "Insert Word Here" Month

2011-09-29T11:22:00.004-05:00

Need a new idea to jazz up your lessons? Research what might be recognized for that month. For example September is National Potato Month and October is National Pizza Month. Students in grades 3-5 can make pie graphs showing favorite pizza topping and student K-1 can draw a picture of a pizza and write a sentence about their picture.

Here is a fun website. www.tagxedo.com After you paste your text into the word boxes you can choose different options that will arrange your work into word clouds in shapes instead of randolmly placed.

I will post some of my student work later in October! Happy Computing!

Upgrade and new learning

2011-07-05T11:39:00.003-05:00

I posted before to learn something new every year. This year I am going to have to learn how to navigate around the latest version of Microsoft Suite (for not tech people, that would be Word, Excel, PowerPoint). I am hoping that most of my projects will easily transfer over and be compatiable. Teaching this year will bring forth many challenges since my chants (i.e. In-sert pic-ture, clip art) will no longer work. Hopefully the new changes will be easier for my students. It sounds like an opportunity for some curriculum writing updates.

It would not be me not to post a cool tip....

Did you know in the newer version of Microsoft Word instead of saving as a document it can be saved as a .pdf ! If your parents have access to Adobe Acrobat no longer will the issue of your document not being able to open for the user!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

2011-03-03T10:02:00.002-06:00

Today’s blog is in celebration of Read Across America.

My first graders listened to Green Eggs and Ham where as my Kindergarten students listened to One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.

The first graders completed the sentence I would eat my green and ham.

The Kindergartners are learning how to click and type numbers and adding up to the sum of 5.

President Day and Snow Days

2011-02-07T20:15:00.004-06:00

Today I began our new project by taking pictures of my first graders wearing a tricorner hat (like George Washington) or a stove pipe hat (like Abraham Lincoln). The students inserted their picture and completed the sentence "If I were president I would....."

Snowmegeddon has been prominent in the area where I live. After reading the story The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, the first graders drew a picture on what they would do on a snowy day. They also typed a sentence about their picture.

Remember, keyboarding in first grade. The students need to learn proper keyboarding: sitting tall in the chair, legs uncrossed, not sitting on their feet. They often hear me say "Two handed typing, what the right hand can do the left hand can help out" or for my left handed friends, what the left hand can do the right hand can help out! I only encourage them the home row position of there hands. They are still a bit to young to be told to keep their hands in homerow and reach for the other keys.

Snowman Book Reports

2010-11-11T13:37:00.010-06:00

The third grade students used the draw tool bar to decorate in the snowman’s face and the hat. The body of the snowman contains the title and author. The bottom of the snowman will contain information about an event that happened in the book. Students changed the font, size and color. Cut it out. Glue and paste to a piece of construction paper! This projects was given two thumbs up!

Picketing Turkeys!

2010-11-09T13:19:00.003-06:00

My favorite lessons are when I can relate a book to an activity. This lesson was inspired from my community center after voting! I saw picketing turkeys in the hallway and thought about what a great idea to pair up with the book called A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting. The students used paint to color in the picketing turkey and completed the phrase Eat More….. They printed them and it really makes a great display of colorful projects. This lesson can be adapted in many ways:

Put the pictures in Photo Story to read what they wrote.

Write a story about the picture they colored.

Talk about healthy food choices.

Translate Eat More in Spanish (Coma Mas) and pair it with a food in Spanish. Record students reading what they wrote!

All About Me

2010-09-14T11:51:00.005-05:00

This year I changed it up a bit for my classes. Each class completed something sharing something about themselves with me. The following are examples of each grade. Each class added a digital picture of themselves. PowerPoint was my media for all grades unless noted.

First grade typed a sentence about themselves.

Second grade typed in answers about themselves using Kidspiration. They also added three pictures of interest.

Third grade did an Acrostic Poem using their name. The final project was typing it in using WordArt. It was printed on fancy paper.

Fourth Grade did a Venn Diagram after interviewing thier partner. They changed the font (size and color), background, and added clipart.

Fifth Grade did an All About Me Poster. They changed the font (size and color), background, and added clipart.

New School Year and New Beginnings!

2010-08-09T19:37:00.000-05:00

If you have been following my blog...don't panic if it doesn't look the same, you found it correctly. I started to play with the new templates and thought it would be ok to try on a new look. Unfortunately the new look had to stay, since I didn't see my old look available. That is ok, it is a new school year which means new beginnings.

I am very excited about some of the new computer lessons I will be doing this school year. One of my favorite websites is http://jenuinetech.com/. Jennifer Wagner, is the creator of many fun and exciting online project for the K-6 classroom. Many of the projects are very similiar to lessons that we do right now; this could refresh or bring new ideas without reinventing the wheel! Suggestive lessons are even included to go with the projects. My students are going to do the Apple project this year. I am sure their will be others, you will have to stay tuned to see what we do with the Apple project!

End of Year Bulletin Board

2010-05-19T12:10:00.000-05:00

I have asked my 5th Grade students to use the Drawing Program to create a self portrait and print to the color printer. The students really need to be encouraged to use the WHOLE screen, otherwise they draw themselve to small for a big bulletin board. Next, they open up word and add a talk bubble and type what they liked about computer class or 5th Grade. They can even talk about what they are looking forward to when they begin middle school. This bulletin board is visible during the summer. It's a great board to have up throughout the summer and visiting families can see what the students like about the school and the things that they learn!

This picture is just a small portion of the whole board! It looks great and I have a lot of compliments on it so far.

Donuts!

2010-05-06T16:14:00.000-05:00

Our second graders are going to the neighborhood donut shop to learn about businesses in our community. We used Google documents to take a poll of the class’s favorite donut. I limited the number of choices to four: Glazed, Chocolate, Sprinkles, and Jelly filled. The students took the information and typed the Data into an Excel Spreadsheet to create a Doughnut Graph. I used the website http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/30209-how-its-made-process-of-making-donuts-video.htm to show the process of making donuts. This page showed a link for the Twinkies which was actually the most popular requested website in my computer lab. This was a 40 minute lesson and could have easily been two lessons.

EXCEL and Google Documents

2010-04-12T16:45:00.000-05:00

I created a Google document inquiring about their favorite toppings on pizza. I emailed it throughout the school asking teachers to participate and encouraged it be sent out to friends and family. Each time a class came into the computer lab the students participated in the poll.

For the same, grade we worked on graphs for the color of our eyes. Each separate class answered an online poll about the color of their eyes. I have decided to move the eye graph to October. It seems appropriate for the month!

Learn Something New #2

2010-03-31T13:59:00.000-05:00

I learned how to use Google Documents! I am very excited about this! Our fourth grade students are learning how to create graphs in Excel. I have created the following online survey using Google Documents. Please take the time to select your favorite pizza toppings.

Voting will end the evening of April 11.

Beginning April 12 the fourth graders will be making pie graphs with the information collected from the online survey.

http://tinyurl.com/yc4hjsm

Please feel free to pass it on to your friends and family.

My next goal is to learn how to do Podcasts!

Learn Something New

2010-03-31T13:40:00.000-05:00

Today’s blog entry is to encourage all of us to learn something new.

A friend shared with me a well known company’s philosophy of being known to be good at least at one thing. It is hard to be half as good at many different things. As you master the one thing begin learning something new.

I like this idea so my goal for 2010 has been learn something new and have chosen to learn:
1. to create clay animation and save it using Windows Movie Maker
2. to use Google Documents
3. to learn how to create a podcast

How do you learn something new? Probably the same way most of us learned how to play a game or learned how to use the computers. Try it out and use the Help from the toolbar!

I have learned how to use clay animation and I feel very comfortable teaching this in my classroom!

Materials that you will need:
Goose neck lamp
Digital camera
Computer with Microsoft PowerPoint and/or a Movie Maker
Non-drying clay
CD-R to save the projects

Renewable items that are needed will depend on how often the class is offered, and that would be CD-R, 40W bulbs and non-drying clay.

Timeline of Events
Each meeting is twice a week for 3-4 Weeks.

Week 1 Introduction Introduce claymation and what it involves

Week 2 Create Draw or Print background for project and create clay figures. We used Kidpix for the background

Week 3 Picture Taking Take the necessary pictures for the project. Small movements and more pictures make a great project. Basically repeat these steps. Move the object. Take a picture

Weeks 4-6 Put Project together Using PowerPoint or Windows Movie
Put Project together Or Show and Tell projects

Pi Day

2010-03-14T20:47:00.000-05:00

Happy Pi Day!

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. But why is Pi Day celebrated today, Sunday, March 14th? Because it's 3.14, and Pi is 3.1415926535.

The Math teacher even had a local bakery donate pies!

Pi picture is from: www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/2332789392/

Character Education

2010-03-13T19:15:00.000-06:00

Character education has recently been endorsed by federal law and by many state laws. Incorporating and integrating literature allows children to explore protagonists who either encompass or are struggling with the common virtues of kindness, caring, courage, responsibility, and citizenship and, in that way, examine their own character traits.

Professional reading at ERIC.ED.Gov

ED457118 - Teaching Character Education Using Children's Literature: Wisconsin's Standards of the Heart. This guide is intended to be a resource for parents and educators to use in choosing quality children's literature that exemplifies positive character development.

Project: Character Power Point

Next, Open Power Point (Start, Programs, Microsoft Office, Power Point)

Students are directed to make a presentation based on 7 main character traits.
• Self Discipline
• Fair-minded
• Responsibility
• Caring (Choose Adjective)
• Good Judgment
• Respect
• Courage

On each Power Point slide can include

1. The character Trait (your title)
2. The definition from an online dictionary
3. An example in using students own words, or a sentence about the character
trait.
4. Clipart relating to

K-1 Reading

2010-02-27T13:07:00.000-06:00

Here is another creative lesson using another Eric Carle Book.

I read The Grouchy Ladybug aloud to first graders. Using Microsoft Paint the students drew a ladybug. Students copied and pasted into Microsoft PowerPoint and typed a story about their ladybug. Next, I recorded each student recorded their story.

2010-02-27T12:05:00.000-06:00

Using PowerPoint to use concepts taught in grades K-1 has been my new discovery! Each slide can be a reading, math or science concept taught in class. I am so excited to share this with everyone!

First you need a book like The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Most of the concepts here involve click and drag.

First you will need to create the title slide. This is to get the students attention and type in their name.

Slide 1: Ordering the days of the week

Slide 2: Can be ordering the caterpillar from smallest to largest.

Slide 3 & 4: Comprehension of the story. Sequence the food items that the caterpillar ate. The cocoon can appear on this slide.

Slide 5: Count the number of butterflies and type the number in the box.

Slide 6: The Life Cycle of the butterfly. Students order the sequence of the Life Cycle of the Butterfly. Ongoing theme with previous slides.

Slide 7: Butterfly Glyph

Slide 8: The End

Each week the student is reviewing a computer concept, math, reading comprehension and or science concept.

2010-02-04T12:11:00.000-06:00

Valentine’s Day Projects

Using Excel

This lesson can be easily adapted for any grade level. I decided to do it with my third graders. Each student (or student pair) will get a box of conversation hearts. They will make a prediction of what color is represented the most. Teacher can make a word cloud at http://www.wordle.com/ and/or using Google document students can type in their prediction. The collected data can be used in various ways. Also, students will make a prediction before the box of candy is opened of how many colors are respectfully represented in the box. After the students open the box they will sort the colors on the sheet of paper by color to create a bar graph. They will then count each color and record each color total in the Conversation Hearts Graph in Excel or other spreadsheet program or online tool. They will compare their real conversation hearts graph on paper to the one created in Excel or other spreadsheet program or online tool.

Using PowerPoint

The students can create a slide show of the different things that they love.

Heartshape Writing

2010-01-27T14:36:00.001-06:00

Just in time for Valentine’s Day! This website is easy for students to maneuver. I asked the students to write about Valentine’s Day. The students were directed to click the heart and copy and paste their work at this Web 2.0 website. It does open into a .pdf file. The students have options to print and save. I asked the students to put their name at the bottom of their document. This way I can easily see how has printed and who has not printed.

http://www.festisite.com/text-layout/

Descriptive Writing

2010-01-14T16:56:00.001-06:00

Reading Educator Blogs can really inspire a teacher to be creative and try new lesson ideas. Listed are just a few websites that lend themselves to creative writing. I love the ideas that can be found at this website. http://technologylessons.blogspot.com/

The author of the aforementioned blog showed how using the following websites can help student create a silly or wild self. I like relating the project to a book, such as The Snowy Day or Where the Wild Things Are. As mentioned in the blog, I concur that after lots of giggling, students made a snowman. I had them use F11 key, copy (print screen) and paste into paint to cut parts they didn’t want away. I like pasting my projects in PowerPoint because it creates a nice frame that is around the paper when it is printed. Also, saving in PowerPoint gives the option to save as a .jpg for future use. Students can write about their creations using descriptive adjectives.

Students can also create their wild self using Microsoft Paint, as shown in the picture.

Create a silly snowman.

http://swf.whodressup.net/Build_a_Snowman.swf

Another fun website is
Build your wild self
http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

2010-01-06T11:18:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite ways of teaching is to use literature. Microsoft Word: Simple Project Primary is a great resource to meet this need. This project integrates Social Studies with Technology and is suggested for grades 1-3. I teach this lesson to my second graders. After reading The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown, the students will write about important things about their school. I pass out a planning sheet for the students to write down what they want to type in the computer. Next, the students will open an existing word document and modify it with the words that they wrote from their planning sheet.

There are so many ways that this lesson can be extended. Students can make a digital recording of their voice of what they wrote in a power point presentation. A picture of the important things around our school can be added to the power point slide or to their word document.

Here is an example:
The parts not italicized are part of the planning sheet.

The Important Thing About School
The Important thing about school is the students.
It needs students to lean,
and to play during recess,
and to make friends during lunch,
and go to specials,
and come to see their favorite computer teacher,
But the important thing about school is the students.

Internet Safety Awareness

2010-01-04T13:16:00.000-06:00

Computer Safety is taught throughout the year. A concentrated effort of teaching Computer and Internet safety is taught in January since many students have received computers or some kind of digital recording device.

Here are some of my favorite web links that I use to reinforce what I have taught in the classroom.

A Common Sense Approach to Internet Safety

Official Get Your Web License with PBS

Cyberbully and more Internet Safety

The Boy Who Loved IM: A Lesson in Instant Messaging
Clicky tells the story of a boy who loves to IM his friends. What should he do when he receives a message from someone he doesn't know? Watch to see if he remembers to "Use Your NetSmartz"!

The Password Rap: A Lesson in Internet Privacy
Tune in to Clicky's new rap to learn how to make a strong password. Why are they important? How do you create one? Watch and find out!

Don't Open That File: A Lesson in Computer Viruses
Clicky raps about the dangers of viruses and how they can make your computer sick. Learn how to use your NetSmartz and protect your computer from getting a virus.

Privacy Playground: The First Adventure of the Three CyberPigs
(Ages 8-10)
In this first adventure, the CyberPigs learn about online marketing, and about protecting their privacy as they surf the Internet.

CyberSense and Nonsense: The Second Adventure of the Three CyberPigs
(Ages 9-12)
In their second adventure, the CyberPigs explore the world of chat rooms and learn to distinguish between fact and fiction, and to detect bias and harmful stereotyping in online content.

Net Know How
This website has a lot of great resources on Plagriasm, copyright, cyberbullying. It is well oraganized and has a lot of information for both teacher and student resources.

Faux Pau the Techno Cat

Presidential Reports

2009-12-17T19:40:00.000-06:00

The January project for my 5th grade students is to research a United States President and create a magazine cover using the website bighugelabs.com/flickr. Also, the final project submitted must have a wordle of their researched President’s speech. The following pictures are examples of their work.

Here are some areas that are researched:

Use www.wikipedia.com to find the following information:
President Name__________________
____President of the United States
Political Party__________________
Occupation__________________

Use www.brainyquotes.com to find a quote from the president.

Tip for magazine cover is to have a designated spot for the student’s name.

Use http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches to find the Inaugural Speech

Do you Wordle?

The website wordle.net is great for many creative lessons. Seasonal Wordlists, book reports, creative iron on transfers, seeking repetitive words in a paragraph are just a few of the ideas that can be used with Wordle. Wordle takes words and combines them to make a cloud or art out of the words. The words that are repeated are larger where as the words that are not used as much in the paragraph are smaller.

Tips: Put ~ between words that you want to keep together. This could help make a creative display characters for a book report.
Also, have the student type their name in at least 5 times so it becomes part of the wordle. This is for easier identification on the owner after it has been printed.

EXCEL Graphs in December

2009-12-09T12:20:00.000-06:00

Excel Graphs are excellent to use during the month of December! Surveying students favorite Christmas Books, Movies, Reindeers are a cinch!

A survey about train snacks can be done after reading Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg or your favorite reindeer after reading The Night Before Christmas.

I like to discuss as a whole group for 1st-2nd grade students where as my 3rd-4th grade students type in their work and edit the graph.

The Safest Way To Share YouTube videos

2009-12-07T11:24:00.000-06:00

Lesson planning is like laundry. It always needs to be done. Also, self-assessment on past lessons needs to be updated and reflected upon. I came across this website http://www.safeshare.tv/ while preparing for 5th Grades digital story telling and podcasting lessons which are lessons that will be started in the late winter early spring.

Did you want to share a youtube video in class but didn’t like the advertisement before or after the video?

I have an example below that you can click and see what this website does!

Example: [Video] Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA - ASL Song

The Polar Express

2009-12-02T12:16:00.000-06:00

This lesson can be modified for any lower school class. This PowerPoint comes with bells and whistles! As a whole class we watch and listen to The Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg http://www.storylineonline.net/ which is read by Lou Diamond Phillips and is about 9 minutes long. Each students responds to the book by typing in their “wish” for the world on a PowerPoint Slide and inserting their digital picture in their train car window. Students also are shown/modeled how to change the color of their car window. This lesson can be differentiated by having students change the font, size, and color.

Here is a link for the Powerpoint.
http://www.cobbk12.org/sites/literacy/fetc/ppt/Polar_short.ppt

Second Grade Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T09:28:00.000-06:00

I am Thankful for my country.

The student will create a 4 linear slide show with title and end slide.
This lesson takes about two class peroids.

Brainstorm and write the different symbols of our country on board.

Type in a symbol of our country for each slide.

Add clip art for each slide.

Change background, font, font size and color.

Print on the color printer.

The turkey tails were created by first graders using Kid Pix.

Thanksgiving Project

2009-11-28T12:29:00.000-06:00

Mouse control and spatial relations are hard for first grade students. They need to have a defined space and a mousepad does the trick! I recalled teachers sharing at a Discovery Conference about how the younger students loved the songs and how excited the students get when they listen and sing along.

This is another lesson that I created using the mouse. First Graders opened up Microsoft Paint and the following link is how I guided the directions for the students to draw a turkey. The students saved the picture as a .jpeg file to a shared folder. http://www.leslietryon.com/seasonal1103/turkeydraw.html

I took pictures of them dancing to the song, their drawings and used photo story to display their pictures.

I liked this lesson a lot! I had so much fun as so did the students. The student work is posted on our school website. They have come back to me in the computer lab and told me they have shared it with siblings and relatives. Click on Thanksgiving Project to view the project

First Grade Excel Graphs

2009-11-28T12:22:00.000-06:00

I may repeat this often but I teach students how to use the computer to create student made projects. I only see students once a week from 25-40 minutes depending on there grade level. Also, I don't teach just one class for each grade. I teach in a large school with 4 or 5 classes depending on the grade level.This is my current first grade lesson that was inspired by clicking around discovery streaming.

Day 1
First I opened up Microsoft Excel and typed yes and no on the spreadsheet. I asked each first grade student "Do Kitty's like to get baths?" I used the chart wizard to create a graph showing the results.
Next, we watched the Discovery Streaming movie titled Doggy Gets a Bath (Why Not Kitty, Too?).
After the movie I asked the students again if kitty's like baths and created a new graph.

Day 2
I used the following websites to help guide the instruction on how to practice using the mouse to draw pictures of cats for our bulletin board.
http://www.joysikorski.com/how_to_kitty.html
http://www.great-pictures-of-cats.com/how-to-draw-kittens.html

Day 3
I will use some of my planning time to create a photostory of the pictures and graphs.