Last week was one of those strange weeks in technology where I did not have classes every day.  Monday was a holiday for students at White Oak Intermediate School.  Wednesday and Thursday were days set aside for STAAR benchmarks for 4th grade Writing and 5th grade Math and Reading.  In addition to that, I had two groups in Technology on Tuesday and Friday at each class period.  That means I had double the number of students I normally have.  Students “paired up” with the person from the other class also assigned to their computer to compete in a President’s Day Challenge for prizes.  The full lesson plan can be found at http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/dailylp/dailylp/dailylp053.shtml

I printed out the matching worksheet and made one copy for each computer in the lab.  Then I created answer documents numbered 1-10 for the teams to record their answers.  Once they were paired and at their computer, they all began at the same time to match the interesting fact with the President.  They were instructed to write their computer number on the back of the paper.  They had to follow directions to put their workstation back in order (pencil put away, computer lid closed, chair pushed in) and return their answer document to me.  The team who returned first with all the right answers and no disqualifications from not following directions chose a prize from the treasure chest.  All the other teams who answered correctly with no disqualifications were placed in a drawing where I chose other teams at random to go to the treasure chest.  With the remaining time, we watched the BrainPop video on George Washington and took the quiz.  I drew numbers at random for students to answer the question.  They had one “phone a friend” where they could choose one friend to help them with the answer.  If they answered correctly, they went to the treasure chest.

When I visited the BrainPop booth at the TCEA Convention, I was able to get a limited-time free subscription in addition to getting my picture made with Mobley!  It sure did come in handy this week!