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.