Snowman Book Reports

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!

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:

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


2. Write a story about the picture they colored.


3. Talk about healthy food choices.


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

All About Me

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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/

K-1 Reading

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.

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.

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

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

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/

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

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