Computer Lab News: Weeks 12-13

KINDERGARTEN: Kindergarten didn’t have classes the week of Thanksgiving since they come to the lab on Wednesdays and Thursdays and we were off then. But, the week before, they completed their B page in their Adventures in Keyboarding book, watched and listened to the book Thanksgiving Is and created turkeys out of hand templates in KidPix. Did you see your Kindergartener’s turkey? If it didn’t make it home or if you want to see all of the turkeys created by Kindergarten, you can find them in a slideshow on Kindergarten’s Online Autumn page.

1ST GRADE: 1st Grade also completed their B page in their Adventures in Keyboarding book. They watched a video about Thanksgiving at BrainPop Jr. and created turkeys out of hand templates in KidPix. Did you see their turkey? A slideshow of all of the 1st Grade turkeys will be available in our Travel Scrapbook soon. 1st Grade also used the educational software program Jumpstart 1st Grade.

2ND GRADE: 2nd Grade watched a video about Thanksgiving at BrainPop Jr. and read the book Thanksgiving Is. They completed two Thanksgiving related projects in KidPix: What I Am Thankful For and a Turkey Glyph. Watch for slideshows of these coming soon to our Travel Scrapbook. When they completed their projects in KidPix, 2nd Grade played some online Thanksgiving games or used the educational software program Jumpstart 2nd Grade.

3RD GRADE: Some of 3rd Grade is still trying to finish up their Plant Life Cycle slideshows in KidPix. These will be shared online very soon! In addition to working on these, 3rd Grade watched a video about Thanksgiving at BrainPop Jr. and completed one or two Thanksgiving related projects in KidPix: What I Am Thankful For and a Turkey Glyph. Slideshows of these will be coming soon to our Travel Scrapbook. When they completed their projects in KidPix, 3rd Grade played some online Thanksgiving games.

4TH GRADE: 4th Grade completed the November activity for Voices of the World which involved illustrating and saying the phrase All For One and One For All. Unfortunately one of the group pictures was overwritten but this should be redone in the future. Check out the November Voices of the World activity on our Voices of the World page. For their Thanksgiving project, 4th Grade created Persuasive Turkeys in KidPix. What’s a persuasive turkey? It’s a turkey that is doing it’s best to convince you not to eat it. Watch our Travel Scrapbook for a slideshow of these in the near future.

5TH GRADE: 5th Grade watched a video about Thanksgiving from BrainPop. They then completed Persuasive Turkeys by creating a turkey in KidPix by either tracing their own hand or using a hand template. They then exported their turkeys out of KidPix and brought them in to PowerPoint where they added a speech or thought bubble which contained a paragraph explaining why their turkey shouldn’t be eaten on Thanksgiving. These will be shared very soon in our Travel Scrapbook. When their turkeys were complete, 5th Grade played some online Thanksgiving games or tried to draw Thanksgiving related cartoons using online tutorials.

6TH GRADE: 6th Grade worked on completing their Cyber-Bullying Comics in Microsoft Word and then wrote their reflections about November for the A Room With a View Project. One of the 6th Graders also took our photo for the month which will be uploaded to the project page next week. Visit our project page to see the photos and click on the discussions tab to read the reflections about each month. 6th Grade also completed Persuasive Turkeys by creating a turkey in KidPix by either tracing their own hand or using a hand template. They then exported their turkeys out of KidPix and brought them in to PowerPoint where they added a speech or thought bubble which contained a paragraph explaining why their turkey shouldn’t be eaten on Thanksgiving. Watch for these in our Travel Scrapbook. 6th Grade also did some keyboarding in Mavis Beacon.

7TH GRADE: 7th Grade continued to work on their Cyber-Bullying Glogs and published them to our wiki when they were completed. Check out our Travel Scrapbook to see the glogs that have been completed so far. This project required that they create a background main idea in PowerPoint and then upload this to their Glogster account and embelish it using the tools there and then save it and post it to our wiki. In addition, 7th Grade created Persuasive Turkeys by creating a turkey in KidPix by either tracing their own hand or using a hand template. They then exported their turkeys out of KidPix and brought them in to PowerPoint where they added a speech or thought bubble which contained a paragraph explaining why their turkey shouldn’t be eaten on Thanksgiving. Watch for these in our Travel Scrapbook.

8TH GRADE: 8th Grade continued to work on their Cyber-Bullying Public Service Announcements. These were created by using PowerPoint to create 8-12 slides about cyber-bulling and exporting the slides as images. The images were then uploaded to their Animoto account and they created a short video which they then posted to our Cyber-Bullying PSA page. We run into some bandwidth and speed issues when everyone is working on these at once so there are still a few not posted but they will be soon. Any 8th Grade student that did complete their PSA created Persuasive Turkeys by creating a turkey in KidPix by either tracing their own hand or using a hand template. They then exported their turkeys out of KidPix and brought them in to PowerPoint where they added a speech or thought bubble which contained a paragraph explaining why their turkey shouldn’t be eaten on Thanksgiving. Watch for these in our Travel Scrapbook.

Computer Lab News: Week 11

KINDERGARTEN: Kindergarten reviewed the parts of the computer by singing Our Computer Song and they visited some age appropriate web sites: Peep & the Big World and Poisson Rouge. Kindergarten also began their introduction to keyboarding by meeting our mascot A Silly Dancing Frog, Giggles and using the web site Key Seeker along with green & purple stickers on their hand to begin to find letters on the keyboard using two hands. They also started working on their Adventures in Keyboarding project in PowerPoint. Each week in class they will be typing words that begin with a specific letter of the alphabet. This week they typed A words. After they finished their typing, they visited Caillou’s Magic Keyboard.

1ST GRADE: 1st Grade was reintroduced to A Silly Dancing Frog, Giggles and Harry (the) Jazzy Koala (with a) Little Semi and visited the web site Key Seeker to reinforce typing with two hands. They then completed the A page of their Adventures in Keyboarding project. Like Kindergarten, 1st Grade will also be completing one letter a week as their typing practice. In addition to typing, 1st Grade also used the educational software program, Jumpstart 1st Grade.

2ND GRADE: 2nd Grade only had computers once this week and concentrated on keyboarding with a re-introduction toe Giggles and Harry to help learn the keys on the homerow. They then completed Stage 1 on the Dance Mat web site. 2nd Grade will be using this site as their primary keyboarding site this year.

3RD GRADE: 3rd Grade only had computers once this week and some of them were still working on their Plant Life Cycle projects in KidPix. Many of the students are done so they went to Tutpup and played math or spelling games against one another or other students around the world.

4TH GRADE: 4th Grade only had computers once this week and reviewed and discussed their Cyber Safety quizzes and Cyber Safety issues.

5TH GRADE: 5th Grade reviewed and discussed their Cyber Safety quizzes and Cyber Safety issues. They also worked on completing their Cyber Safety posters in PowerPoint and All About Me projects in KidPix. These are complete and will be shared soon. Once they were done they played some Internet Safety games and during the last 15 minutes of class they went to Tutpup and played math or spelling games against one another or other students around the world.

6TH GRADE: 6th Grade only had computers once this week and they worked on finishing up their Cyber Bullying Comics in Microsoft Word and writing their November Reflections for our A Room With A View project.

7TH GRADE: 7th Grade completed their Electoral Votes spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel for St. Martin’s voting and reported their results. They then worked on their Cyber Bullying Glogs.

8TH GRADE: 8th Grade completed their Electoral Votes spreadsheets for St. Martin’s voting and reported their results. They then worked on their Cyber Bullying Animoto videos.