5th Grade completed their work on the Time Zone Experiences project. You can see what each 5th Grader completed on our Time Zone Experiences page. 5th Grade also completed the Month by Month portion of the Time Zone Experience project and here is a slideshow of their work:

Once the time & month portions of this project were complete, each 5th grader also answered a series of questions reflecting on the Time Zone Experiences project.

The end of the year included some keyboarding lessons for those finished with other work. Keyboarding is a major part of 6th Grade so those that didn’t have keyboarding time this year will get it in 6th Grade. Touch typing using correct technique is a skill that will be useful not only during Middle School but will be invaluable in High School and beyond. I would encourage your children to practice their keyboarding skills over the summer as we would like them to type at least 30 WPM by the end of 6th Grade. Check the Summer Ideas page for links to keyboarding sites but practice does not have to be actual keyboarding sites. Keyboarding skills can improve while IMing or playing games online or emailing, etc. as long as the correct technique is used each and every time any typing is done. Take some time to watch your child as they type and encourage them to properly position their hands and to use the correct fingers for typing. It’s much easier to learn to do this correctly then to have to unlearn bad habits.

5th Grade also completed an End of Year Survey about the projects and activities they did in the computer lab during the year. As you can see from the results, the favorite activity for the year was World Math Day. 5th Grade really enjoyed the online math activities that we did this year. If you child would like to keep up with their math facts during the summer, they can visit Tutpup and Arcademic Skill Builders and complete against others from around the world.

While some of the students rated the month portion of the Time Zone Experiences project as their favorite activity, the least favorite activity was by far the time portion of the Time Zone Experiences project. This was a tough project with a lot of new skills. I am proud of all of the students for finishing the work and hope that they learned something in the process.

The majority of the 5th Grade felt that the World Math Day activity was the most useful to them.

The final question on the survey was What do you hope to learn in computers in 6th Grade? The majority of the students hoped to improve their keyboarding skills in 6th Grade.

I am looking forward to the 2009/2010 with this class. We will be spending time on keyboarding and improving our knowledge of Microsoft Word as well as learning more about Internet Safety and much, much more.