In first grade this week we worked on finding current temperatures of cities around the U.S. The children have been studying temperature in math, so I wanted to put their new knowledge into action. In computer class, they were directed to find the temperatures of 4 specific cities around the country using www.weather.com and then record the data on a drawing of the U.S. If they completed the four cities they were encouraged to then research the temperatures in cities of their choosing. The second graders worked on finishing up their annotated diagrams this week. Many students have decided to include their diagrams in their published pieces for wirter's workshop. Here are a few more examples to enjoy! In one of the second grade classes this week, we tried a fun drawing/painting activity once the children finished up their annotating. I asked them to draw a picture of their choice using Doozla, but my expectation was that their pictures only contain lines, line segments, points, and quadrangles--all terms they have been discussing in math. Here are a few of the finished products: Mrs. Foster's class made short videos this week in computer explaining what they have learned about the four different types of sentences. The children were divided into groups by the teacher and then encouraged to make a video using whatever avenue they wanted. We ended up with a scene at school, at a clothing store, and at a sandwich shop. Take a look!
0 Comments
First GradeOne of the first grade classes used Doozla this week to make "I am thankful for..." pictures. This project puts a techie spin on the traditional trace-your-hand-to-make-a-turkey project. They turned out well! Also in first grade this week, we played an alternate version of "Name that Number" using the computers. The children each wrote a target number at the top of their computer screen (using Doozla), and when the bell rang in the lab they were asked to travel to another computer in the room and write a number sentence that equaled the target number (i.e. if the target number was 15, a child could write 10 plus 5, etc.). The bell rang numerous times during the period, so by the end of class each student's computer had a smattering of number sentences containing several numbers and various operations. I was proud of their hard work and creativity! Second GradeMany of the second graders finished up their nonfiction picture annotations this week. Have a look at the cool work they did to teach an audience what they know about their topic of choice. Third GradeWe worked very hard to wrap up our Vokis this week in third grade. If you haven't seen them, be sure to run your mouse over the 3rd grade link above and find your child's class.
1st Grade In first grade this week, we practiced using the mouse and got better acquainted with our computer and technology webpage by playing some of the games posted to the first grade page. The children should now have a better handle on how to navigate to "Mrs. Bullock's page" from Ms. Becker's fabulous LS Faculty Webpages site and they should also feel more confident using the browser's back button. In the Lower School, we use Firefox and Safari interchangeably; Chrome is installed on our machines, but we have not added it to the dock for regular use just yet--although we do encourage our teachers to use it! 2nd Grade In second grade this week, we started a new activity that is meant to correlate to the current nonfiction reading and writing units of study taking place in the classrooms. The children were taught how to use Britannica's Image Quest to search for rights-cleared images that they could then manipulate in the computer lab. They were encouraged to find images of the subject(s) they have chosen to write about with their lead teacher, but this was not a requirement of the project. The images that the children selected varied from a sea star to the Olympic flag to a newborn baby, and they were all taught how to save their images to the Desktop of their computers. The next step of the project was to teach them how to use the application, Preview, to annotate and edit their images. We talked about how many of the nonfiction books we read contain annotated diagrams and illustrations (examples I shared were the DK Eyewitness Dogs, Swimming, and Baseball books), and that we could use the power of Preview to add labels and text boxes to our images and use them as teaching tools for our audience. I was so proud of how well the children followed my example this week, and I'm looking forward to seeing their work in their published nonfiction writing very soon! Here is a sneak peek of Zion's work: 3rd Grade In third grade this week, we worked hard on our Voki projects. Be sure to check them out on the lead teacher's webpages that appear when you hover over the 3rd grade link above!
This short week (yay for Fall Break!) was all about wrapping up some unfinished projects, but I do want to take the opportunity to point out something COOL Mrs. Darsey and Mr. Morton's first grade class is trying out: BLOGGING! Mrs. Darsey is especially excited about getting her students reading and talking about their reading this year, so she came up with the idea to encourage her children to write blog posts about the reading that takes place in their classroom. You can see the class blog here. We took time in computer this week to talk about what blogging is, share an example of a blog that Lovett students used last year, and to begin crafting our first posts. Way to go, first graders!
In first grade this week we worked hard to finish up our farm pictures...but not before adding a final detail to them--an attention box! Since by the time we had computer class together again the children had already been on their field trip to the Southern Belle Farm, we took the opportunity to add a section to our pictures where we could document our favorite part of the trip. We talked about the techniques that authors, illustrators, and web designers use to get their audience's attention (using bold colors, adding shapes around the information, using large font, etc.), and we tried out those strategies in our farm pictures. Here are a couple of examples of some finished work: Notice how Alex used a bright blue box to draw attention to her favorite part of the trip--the hayride! Laura decided to use spiky callout boxes to draw the reader's eye to what she enjoyed best--taking home a pumpkin! We celebrated "pattern day" (a Mrs. Bullock-coined term) in two of the second grade classes this week. Did you notice that Thursday was October 11, 2012...otherwise known as 10/11/12? We thought that was such a cool numerical pattern that we traveled around the Lower School in search of additional patterns. We used our four Tuff Cams (like the one pictured here) and snapped photos in groups of four or five students. During our next class, we'll work to edit and annotate our photos using the application, Preview. In third grade this week, we began using our Writers! A "Writer" is a portable keyboarding device that is checked out to our third grade students each year. The children use them to practice their typing skills in preparation for the fourth and fifth grade laptop program. Every third grader is expected to complete level one on the device, which requires them to pass 116 keyboarding lessons. Getting acquainted with the Writer and building good keyboarding habits such as proper posture and finger placement are tough skills, but our third graders always experience great success! Writer lessons are completed at school at the discretion of the classroom teacher. Should your child be interested in practicing his or her keyboarding skills at home, I recommend the following online resources: Level One of Dance Mat Typing
Keyman Game (like PacMan) Keyboard Revolution (use the arrows to select a lesson) Typing Learning Games for Kids (numerous activities) With first grade this week, I focused on beginning to teach the children how to read a website. We talked about how websites have an "address" (we called it a "URL") just like they do, and that a web address won't actually take them to a live page online unless they enter it correctly. We practiced with the website www.southernbellefarm.com since they have a field trip to the Southern Belle Farm in McDonough next week. From the farm website, we talked about reading headings and recognizing the navigation bar and links. We found the link called "school field trips," and read through what they could expect as part of their fall field trip. I know they are looking forward to it, and I sure wish I could go with them! To get the children thinking about farms, our activity this week involved making a modified K-W-L using Doozla. We split our Doozles in half, used the left side of screen to jot down or draw things that we already know about farms, and we used the right side of the screen to record things we wanted to find out about farms or the Southern Belle Farm in particular. Here are some examples of works-in-progress: With third grade this week, I began a character project using Voki. The word "voki" is a combination of the Latin word "vox" (which means voice) and the Norse word "loki" (which means prankster). Our Vokis will be online characters to which we will eventually add our voices. Here is the Voki that I created to introduce the project to my students: The work we did this week involved using Stickies to get a script written. The children have each chosen one of the following approaches for their Voki project: 1) to brainstorm 3 attributes for their character and give evidence from their book in support of those attributes 2) to explain how their character changed from the beginning of the book to the end 3) to give examples of what their character does and doesn't like, what his/her problem was in the book and how it was resolved. My hope is that this project supports all the hard work the children are doing in reader's workshop around the study of character.
In third grade this week, Mrs. Callaway--the director of Lovett's Academic Resource Center--visited with each computer class to teach them about learning styles and to administer a learning styles inventory. Every third grader took this survey and now has a detailed summary of the results, which includes suggestions for how s/he can be more productive in school and at home. As a teacher, these results are invaluable; they help me tweak my content instruction and delivery so I can better meet the needs of the diverse learners in the lab. Below is an anonymous example of survey results. If you would like a copy of your child's results, you are welcome to contact either Joye Callaway [email protected] or myself. Ms. Carter has been working with the second graders on cleanliness and health. They've been talking about germs, where germs hide, how you can protect yourself from germs, and how you can prevent the spread of germs. In the computer lab this week, Ms. Carter and I worked together with the second graders as they put together personalized books filled with photos of "germs" and reminders for maintaining good health. The children used Pages for this project, which is not an application that they have much experience with just yet. We sure were proud of the progress they made with an application geared toward more advanced users! Here is a sample of our work, the Avoid Germs Handbook by Miles from Mrs. Johnston's class and G is for Germs and They're Everywhere by Montana from Mrs. MacEwen's class: In first grade this week, we talked about International Dot Day. Peter Reynolds is the author of the picture book, The Dot, and in celebration of the "birth" of this book, students and teachers all over the world join with Mr. Reynolds to celebrate Dot Day. The main character of the book, Vashti, has an experience in art class that teaches her about the power and creativity that lies inside her; once she discovers her own talent and begins to trust herself and her abilities, she passes that amazing feeling on to another character--she leaves a mark (or a "dot") in that character's life. It's a wonderful book worth checking out!
Our project this week consisted of creating our own Vashti-inspired dot drawings using Doozla. The children were encouraged to be original, use whatever colors they saw fit, and to add a thought about how they might "make their mark" on someone this year in the middle of their dot drawing. They were of course reminded to "sign it" at the culmination of class. We will take time next week to complete these drawings, but for now you can check out the first grade classroom teachers' links from this site to see some examples. Following a brief discussion about computer lab rules and expectations, the first graders listened intently as the process of logging in to their Everyday Math online game accounts was explained this week. They each have a unique username and password for logging in that they are encouraged to use both at school and at home, and we needed to teach them which site to use when logging in, what their login information was, and how to actually input that information into the site. Quite a feat for a little one! The children can access the Everyday Math game site from the LS Faculty Webpages site or their lead teacher's webpage. The students did very well and had a blast trying out some of the one-player games that accompany the site. I've heard from a few students that the games are not all working from home, so I would encourage parents to check out the snapshot below to see if your computer meets the minimum technology requirements for the site or contact Everyday Math technical support at http://www.epgtech.com/contact/index.php. The second graders that I saw this week (MacEwen and Smith) enjoyed a reminder of computer lab rules, followed by a BrainPop, Jr. movie reviewing the parts of the computer, and then a scavenger hunt quizzing their knowledge of lab expectations. Parents: don't forget that your child can access BrainPOP and BrainPOP, Jr. from home using Lovett's username and password. It is a fantastic resource for children, and it gets better every year! Feel free to send me an email if you need the login information. In Ms. Mills and Mrs. Foster's third grade classes this week, we were thrilled to get started with earning our "Digital Passport" through Common Sense Media. The Digital Passport project was tested last year, and it is a wonderful resource for beginning a dialogue with children about the appropriate use of technology, the dangers of posting information to the Web, the importance of protecting one's identity and passwords, etc. In the lab, we typically have time to complete one activity (consisting of a lesson, a corresponding game, and a final mission). Following the completion of the mission, the students earn a badge and are one step closer to earning their passport. Here is the student login if your child is interested in working on his or her passport at home. We are having fun and learning important lessons at the same time! |
About
Check back often to read about the teaching and learning taking place in the computer lab! Categories
All
Archives
May 2013
|