Nov. 8-Nov. 12

4th and 5th Grade-Students opened Keynote on the dock of their computer and began work on their Countdown to Christmas slide.  Students added the Tuxpaint drawing from last week as the background and then created three text boxes.  One with a number between 1 and 24, one that said “days until” and one that said “Christmas.”  Students then adjusted the font style, color and size to compliment their background image.  Finally, students added a Build In animation to the text boxes.  Thirteen submissions will be chosen to be featured in Morning Announcements for the month of December.

3rd Grade-Students posted their Leave and Tell slides to their blog.

Nov. 1-Nov. 5

4th and 5th Grade-Students began working on their animated slide to count down the days until Christmas.  Students use a program called Tuxpaint to create a unique background image for their slide.  Next week, students will use the image they created as the background to a Keynote slide where they will animate the countdown to Christmas.  The best 13 animations will be used in Morning Announcements during the month of December.

3rd Grade-Students are continuing to learn about Digital Citizenship.  Today they discovered what their response should be when they come across something online that is not appropriate.  LEAVE AND TELL!  After watching the video below, students decorated a google slide with the words Leave and Tell.  They were able to choose the font, color, and size of the words, change the background, and add images.  Next week students will post the image to their blog.  Below are a few examples of student creations.

 

Oct. 25-Oct. 29

This is a make-up work/makerspace week.  Classrooms that had less than three strikes (a class receives a strike when someone fails to sign out of Google Classroom or put their screen shot in the trash) participated in Makerspace where they engaged with hot wheels tracks, puppets, playdoh, paper crafts like origami, and legos.  The remaining classes finished any make up work and then had free time on their computer.

Oct. 19-Oct. 22

5th Grade-Fifth graders are continuing to work at their own pace to complete the first 126 lessons in Typing Club.  They are beginning to realize how being consistent and building muscle memory is important to maintaining their speed and accuracy as they continue to add keys.

3rd and 4th Grade-Due to Monday being a holiday, the 3rd and 4th graders took a break from their scheduled curriculum to learn a little about Google Sheets.  Students accessed their own copy of a google sheet where they used a 15×15 grid to create their own unique pixel art. I was very impressed by their artistic talent as you can see from the examples below. Eric Curts from ControlAltAchieve has some very creative spreadsheet templates also.

Oct. 11-Oct. 15

5th Grade-Fifth graders are continuing to work at their own pace to complete the first 126 lessons in Typing Club.  They are beginning to realize how being consistent and building muscle memory is important to maintaining their speed and accuracy as they continue to add keys.

4th Grade-This week, 4th graders will be taking their web license test in google classroom. Once they have scored 100%, they will be given their web license.

3rd Grade-Third graders will post last week’s activity to their blog. Below is a screen shot of a student’s blog post.

Inspiration and Hope

I had an incident occur this week that inspired me and brought hope to my heart.  A fourth grade student had been working on an individual project for about five weeks.  She was learning how to play The Star Spangled Banner on an electronic keyboard by watching the youtube video below:

She had earphones plugged into the keyboard so as not to disturb the other students in the computer lab. On Thursday, she had finally memorized her song and asked me if I wanted to hear her play it. I unplugged her headphones to listen. She was stationed in the back of the computer lab, so as I faced her, my back was to most of the other students in the room. As she began to play, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. When I turned around to see what it was, I could barely believe my eyes! To my complete surprise, most of the students in the class had stopped what they were doing and were STANDING WITH THE HANDS OVER THEIR HEARTS!  When she finished her song, they broke out in thunderous applause.  It did my heart good.

Oct. 4-Oct. 8

5th Grade-Fifth graders are continuing to work at their own pace to complete the first 126 lessons in Typing Club.  I am amazed at how fast they are learning the keys.

4th Grade-Fourth graders have completed all the modules in Digital Passport to review for their web license test.  This week they will complete the review by seeing the 20 questions on the test in a game of Kahoot.  They will take their web license test next week.

3rd Grade-Third graders will understand what personal information should be kept private when using the internet and why.  They will watch the BrainPop video titled “Online Safety.” Students will access the Google Drawing below and drag each item to the correct column to demonstrate their understanding.

Sept. 27-Oct. 1

5th Grade-Students will continue working at their own pace in Typing Club.

4th Grade-Students will complete the last module in Digital Passport called Mix and Mash.  In this module, students review the copyright law and the need to give attribution (or credit) when we use someone else’s creative work.

3rd Grade-Students will post the image below to their blog to be reminded of the definition of the terms.

Sept. 20-Sept. 24

5th Grade – Students are continuing to build muscle memory for touch typing in the TypingClub platform.  Students are working at their own pace to complete the first 126 lessons.

4th Grade – Students will complete the Digital Passport module called Evolve.  This module reviews the concept of learning to be an upstander to bullies and cyberbullies.

3rd Grade – Third grade is beginning their unit of Digital Citizenship. Students will watch the video embedded below that relates driving a car without knowledge or experience of potential dangers to being on the internet without knowledge of potential dangers.  Students will then watch the Information Privacy video in Brain Pop. As students work through the units, they are gaining the knowledge they need to earn their Web License.