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.