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Computer Lab News 4th Grade: Weeks 30 – End of Year

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4th Grade finished off the 2008/2009 year by completing their Keyboarding Boot Camp and finish the last two Voices of the World Projects. The goal of Keyboarding Boot Camp was to improve keyboarding technique which will in turn improve keyboarding speed. The average increase in speed during the 12 class session was 60% with an average typing speed of 20wpm. All but two of the 4th grade students met or exceeded their goal for the class. Keyboarding instruction will continue in 5th Grade and beyond.

The April Voices of the World Project was all about the planets. Each 4th grader drawing a planet (or the sun) and then recorded themselves saying their planet’s name. This project included Pluto even though Pluto is not considered a planet any more. 4th Grade also visited some web sites about the planets to see what each planet looks like and read some facts about the planets and used an online image editor called SUMO Paint to create the planet pictures.

May’s task was a celebration of the two years of the Voices of the World project. Each school was to say in their own language: Happy Anniversary, Two years of Voices of the World, Congratulations all.

Finally, 4th Grade took 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 the Tongue Twisters. If you haven’t watched and listened to this one you really should.

4th Grade Favorites

Coming in as the least favorite project or activity for 4th Grade was Keyboarding Boot Camp. Interestingly though, the majority of the 4th Graders hope to learn how to type better in 5th Grade.

4th Grade Least Favorites

The votes for the Most Useful Project or Activity were split between many projects and activities with the Computer Parts & Internet Safety activities slightly edging out others.

4th Grade Mose Useful

I look forward to having this class in 5th Grade and look forward to seeing how fast some of them will be typing by the time the enter Middle School!

Computer Lab News: Weeks 21-29 – 4th Grade

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4th Grade completed their Snow Cinquains and altered snowflakes and these are now shared on the Travel Scrapbook on our wiki. I hope you will take a minute to check these out. They did a great job with the snowflakes and their poetry.

4th Grade also completed the February and March Voices of the World activities. February’s activity was to illustrate and say the months of the year and March’s activity was to illustrate the various locations of the schools participating and say the name of the state and/or country. These are now shared on our Voices of the World page on our wiki. If you haven’t, I would encourage you to visit the Voices of the World Wiki and check out all of the voices participating in this project – it really is amazing!

4th Grade is currently in the middle of a 12 Class Keyboarding Boot Camp. This involves taking a timed test at the beginning of class, completing keyboarding lessons in Mavis Beacon and playing some typing games. These classes are meant to teach proper technique and not to concentrate too much on speed. If your child memorizes the keyboard and learns the correct technique for keyboarding, speed will come. I would encourage you to encourage your child to practice keyboarding at home. As with anything, the more you practice, the better you get. Here are some keyboarding lesson sites they could use at home:

  • TypingWeb.com – Lessons, Graphs to track progress, typing games. This site requires registration and can be ad free for a $5 one-time donation. You can customize the look of your background and some other features.
  • GoodTyping.com – 27 lessons. This site requires registration.
  • FreeTypingGame.net – This site has lessons, games & speed tests. We often use this site in class to test speed.
  • PowerTyping – Simple typing lessons where you can type to music to encourage rhythmic typing. Records your WPM on each lesson and assigns a grade.
  • Sense-Lang – A simple site with lessons starting with the home row. This site also allows you to paste text from anywhere and practice typing using that text. This is a nice feature since it practices real typing rather than just random words or letter combinations.
  • NimbleFingers – This site has online typing tests and a typing program you can download called Word Wacker. This is a free to try program.
  • E-Learning For Kids – A fun animated course.
  • Dance Mat Typing – Fun Characters and songs to introduce Touch Typing for children 7-11 years old from the BBC.

Computer Lab News: Weeks 17-20

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Wow, it’s February already and here’s what we did in the lab during January!

KINDERGARTEN: Kindergarten worked on learning more letters on the keyboard focusing on the letters “E” through “G” this month. Kindergarten once again concentrated on all things winter and the Winter Wonderland Project. The students watched some of the videos created by other schools involved with this project and they had fun seeing the pictures and singing along to the songs. For their contributions to the project this month, each Kindergarten student created a Penguin Glyph and completed a Penguin Math Book. You can see the finished projects on Kindergarten’s Winter Wonderland page. The book My Brother Loved Snowflakes was read to Kindergarten and they are currently creating their own snowflakes using KidPix in tribute to Wilson Bentley.

1ST GRADE: 1st Grade also spent most of their time this month working on winter things for the Winter Wonderland Project. The students watched some of the videos created by other schools involved with this project and dictated comments to be left for the other schools which were posted on the project wiki. For their contributions to the project this month, each 1st Grade student created a Penguin Glyph and completed a Penguin Math Book. These will be added to 1st Grade’s Winter Wonderland page very soon. 1st Grade also enjoyed the book My Brother Loved Snowflakes and drew their very own snowflakes in KidPix. In addition to the winter projects, 1st Grade also continued to work on their Adventures in Keyboaring completing letters “E” throught “G” this month.

2ND GRADE: The Winter Wonderland Project was also the focus for 2nd Grade this month. They started off the month by reading the Lookybook Penguins Everywhere. Then, they too completed Penguin Glyphs. In addition to just creating the glyph according to the directions, 2nd Grade learned how to rotate items in PowerPoint and to add clipart to their completed glyph. Each 2nd grader was assigned a type of penguin and had to find out how tall the penguin is, how much they weigh and what they eat and add this information to their glyph. You can see the completed glyphs and penguin information on 2nd Grade’s Winter Wonderland page. 2nd Grade is finishing up the Penguin Math Books this coming week and those will be shared once they are complete.

3RD GRADE: 3rd Grade also watched and commented on videos done by other schools in the Winter Wonderland Project and completed Penguin Glyphs. 3rd Grade also reviewed how to rotate items in PowerPoint and how to add clipart to their completed glyph. Each 3rd grader also included information about their assigned type of penguin on their glyph. This will be shared on 3rd Grade’s Winter Wonderland page very soon. 3rd Grade has also joined another collaborative project, The Monster Project. As an introduction to this project, 3rd Grade watched a video about adjectives and listened to the book, Many Luscious Lollipops. After reviewing what an adjective is, 3rd grade then created an Adjective Web about their favorite food.

4TH GRADE: 4th Grade began the new year by checking out who had taken their Christmas Tongue Twister challenges and then they listened to and commented on the December Voices of the World projects from the other schools. St. Martin’s was in charge of the January Voices of the World project and we had fun making our video of the song Make New Friends. You can check it out on our Voices of the World page. We can’t wait to see what the other schools do with this. Since January was a short month due to the winter break some of the schools are still working on this. 4th Grade isn’t involved with the Winter Wonderland Project since this is a K-3 project but they did spend some time working on projects inspired by this project. Wilson Bentley was introduced to 4th Grade through the book Snowflake Bentley. After this was read, 4th Grade used a template in PowerPoint to create a timeline of Bentley’s life and decorated it with appropriate clip art. 4th Grade then used PhotoFiltre to digitally alter Wilson Bentley’s snowflake images in the style of Rick Doble. The cinquain style of poetry was then reviewed and 4th grade created a slide in PowerPoint which contained their snowflake image(s) and a cinquain poem that they wrote about snow or winter or Wilson Bentley. They learned how to record in PowerPoint and they recorded themselves reciting their poem. A show of all of their snowflakes and poems will be coming soon.

5TH GRADE: Ask your 5th Grader about GMT or UTC and they should know what those are and be able to tell you the difference between California time and GMT. This month in computers was all about time for 5th Grade as they began working on the Time Zone Experiences project. 5th Grade started out the month with an introduction to the project and to Greenwich Mean Time. They were also introduced to how to edit a wiki and what a “wiki war” is. After taking a short quiz about time and a survey about when they go to bed and wake up, each 5th Grade student was assigned a Greenwich Mean Time. They have been working on editing our  wiki to add information about what time that is in California time and what St. Martin’s 5th Graders would normally be doing at that time of day. They are also using KidPix to draw a picture about what would normally be happening at that time and are adding that to their page on the wiki too. You can watch our progress on our Time Zone Experiences page. Once they have finished their pages on our wiki, they will be updating the Time Zone Experiences project with their information too.

6TH GRADE: Just before the Christmas break, 6th Grade began working on a research project about Christmas Around The World. Each student was assigned a country and had to make an outline in Microsoft Word about what Christmas is like in that country. They then created a PowerPoint presentation from their outline and used that information to create visual slides about Christmas in their country. Once their slides were complete, they narrated each slide. After their presentation was complete, they uploaded it to St. Martin’s account at Slideboom and then added their Slideboom presentation to our Christmas Around The World page. This project meant learning a lot of new skills and reviewing some previously learned: Outlining in Word, Creating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word outline, Recording narration on a slide, Making a sound play automatically on a slide, Transitioning slides, Uploading to Slideboom, Editing a Wiki. There a still a few students that haven’t quite finished but most of the completed presentations are available on our Christmas Around The World page. In addition to this project, 6th Grade also worked on their January Reflections for the A Room With a View project and reviewed some of the other school’s pictures and comments in this project.

7TH GRADE: 7th Grade spent the first week of the month completing their Human Genetics Final Reports an Cyber Bullying Glogs if those were not done. On Inauguration Day, 7th Grade watched a Dateline NBC video called Hope, Change & Symbolism and discussed how far the country has come. They also discussed what they thought the themes of President Obama’s Inauguration Speech was. The format of a formal letter was reviewed and then each student wrote a letter to the President. These have been mailed for any student that wanted their letter sent to the President. 7th Grade ended the month working on a project inspired by the Winter Wonderland Project. The book Snowflake Bentley was read to introduce 7th Grade to Wilson Bentley and then 7th Grade used Excel to create an illustrated timeline of Wilson Bentley’s life. After the timeline was complete, they then used PhotoFiltre to digitally alter Wilson Bentley’s snowflake images in the style of Rick Doble. Two styles of poetry were reviewed, cinquain and haiku, after which 7th Grade created a slide in PowerPoint which contained their snowflake image(s) and a poem that they wrote about snow or winter or Wilson Bentley. They learned how to record in PowerPoint and they recorded themselves reciting their poem. A show of all of their snowflakes and poems will be coming soon.

8TH GRADE: On Inauguration Day, 8th Grade also watched the Dateline NBC video called Hope, Change & Symbolism and discussed how far the country has come and what they thought the themes of President Obama’s Inauguration Speech was. The format of a formal letter was reviewed and then each student wrote a letter to the President. These have been mailed for any student that wanted their letter sent to the President. The rest of the month has been spent writing scripts for the first Social Studies podcast. The segments of this are currently being recorded and will be shared very soon.

Computer Lab News: Weeks 14-16

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Wow, December was a busy month at St. Martin’s and not just in the Computer Lab!! I hope that all of you have had a wonderful Christmas. First, I’d like to share with you an online holiday card that I created for a collaborative project that Kindergarten through 3rd Grade are currently doing. All of the Kindergarten & 1st Grade students drew nativity pictures in KidPix and I used this to create our Holiday Card. You can see our card and a card created by another school in the project on the Winter Wonderland Holiday Cards page. And now, here’s a recap of what happened in the Computer Lab during December and a whole lot of projects for you to take a look at.

Kindergarten through 3rd Grade focused on the Winter Wonderland project during December. This is an online project for grades K-3 that includes winter-themed technology activities for December, January & February. Kindergarten-3rd Grade will be doing at least some of these activities during these months and reviewing the activities done by other schools.

KINDERGARTEN: Kindergarten worked on learning more letters on the keyboard focusing on the letters “C” and “D” this month. KidPix was put to good use drawing both Winter Wonderland pictures and Nativity pictures. The Winter Wonderland pictures were made into a video which also includes Kindergarten singing “Jingle Bells”. The Nativity pictures were used in our online Holiday Card and Kindergarten signed some real cards that we sent to a few of the participating schools in the Winter Wonderland project. Kindergarten also took holiday polls as part of the Winter Wonderland project and we graphed the results in Excel. And when we were all done with that, Kindergarten played some fun Christmas games on the Internet. Check out Kindergarten’s Winter Wonderland page to see their video and the results of our polls.

1ST GRADE: 1st Grade worked on keyboarding focusing on the letters “C” and “D”. We will be continuing this each week for most of the rest of the school year and will have a mini-alphabet book when we’re done. 1st Grade took the Holiday Polls for the Winter Wonderland project and created a Winter Wonderland video with pictures they drew in KidPix and a recording of them singing “Jingle Bells”. 1st Grade also drew Nativity pictures for our online Holiday Card and signed some real cards that we sent to a few of the participating schools in the Winter Wonderland project. Check out 1st Grade’s Winter Wonderland page to see their video and the results of our polls. 1st Grade even had some time just before Christmas to play some fun Christmas Games online. I’ve also posted 1st Grade’s Hand Turkeys that they created in November on our Travel Scrapbook so check those out when you get a chance.

2ND GRADE: 2nd Grade spent December focused on Winter Wonderland projects. First, they took the Holiday Polls for the Winter Wonderland project. They did this by filling out a form online on the Winter Wonderland wiki and submitting their answers. If you want to see the results of these polls for all the schools in the project, you can go to Winter Wonderland Holiday Polls and have a look. Then 2nd Grade drew pictures of what Winter Wonderland looks like to them and they sang “Jingle Bells” and were recorded during a computer class. Their pictures and their singing were combined to make a video. 2nd Grade wasn’t done with Winter Wonderland yet though. They also created Gingerbread Houses in Excel by coloring cells based on a template and then adding clipart to decorate their houses. You can see 2nd Grade’s video and their Gingerbread Houses on their Winter Wonderland page. I have also posted 2nd Grade’s Pumpkin Math Books and their November projects on their Online Autumn page – make sure you check these out too!

3RD GRADE: 3rd Grade completed Winter Wonderland activities during December. First, they took the Holiday Polls for the Winter Wonderland project. They did this by filling out a form online on the Winter Wonderland wiki and submitting their answers. If you want to see the results of these polls for all the schools in the project, you can go to Winter Wonderland Holiday Polls and have a look. When the polls were done, 3rd Grade drew pictures of what Winter Wonderland looks like to them and they sang “Jingle Bells” and were recorded during a computer class. Their pictures and their singing were combined to make a video. 3rd Grade also created Gingerbread Houses in Excel by coloring cells based on a template and then adding clipart to decorate their houses. When they completed their Gingerbread Houses, they were able to play some Gingerbread or Christmas Games. You can see 3rd Grade’s Winter Wonderland video and their Gingerbread Houses on their Winter Wonderland page. 3rd Grade’s “What I Am Thankful For” and “Turkey Glyph” projects are also now available on our Travel Scrapbook – check them out!

4TH GRADE: 4th Grade completed the December activity for their online project, Voices of the World.  You can see this on their Voices of the World page and check out all of the other voices on the Voices of the World wiki. Do you know how to say Peace, Love, Hope and Joy in other languages? You can find out at Voices of the World! 4th Grade has also started working on their keyboarding skills using Sponge Bob Typing. 4th Grade’s Christmas project was a fun one. They selected a Christmas Tongue Twister and illustrated it and then added it to our Tongue Twister VoiceThread where they said the Tongue Twister and then challenged others to say it too. Students from a school in New Jersey have taken their challenges and you can hear them on the VoiceThread too! Can you meet the challenge? Set up a VoiceThread account (it’s free) and try it! 4th Grade’s Internet Safety Posters and their Persuasive Turkeys have been added to our Travel Scrapbook. Make sure you take some time to look at these too.

5TH GRADE: 5th Grade spent some time keyboarding in Mavis Beacon this month and they did a fun Christmas Typing activity. They were challenged to type the lyrics to a song using Microsoft as they listened to the song. Try this – it’s harder than you think. Once they were done with the lyrics, they had to add at least one clip art picture to decorate their lyrics. 5th Grade also completed a spreadsheet in Excel in order to figure out how many presents were received in total for the 12 Days of Christmas. Do you know? Ask your 5th Grader! 5th Grade’s Internet Safety Posters and their Persuasive Turkeys have been added to our Travel Scrapbook – check them out. We will be starting an online collaborative project in January and this requires that each 5th Grader return a signed Wiki Warranty. If you have not seen and signed this, please download it from here, discuss it with your 5th Grader and sign and return it to school.

6TH GRADE: 6th Grade completed their reflections for December and posted them to the discussions tab on their A Room With A View page. Head over to the page to check out the photos so far and read the reflections by clicking on the Discussions tab and then on each month. 6th Grade also tried the lyrics typing. I bet they can still sing the chorus to the song! 6th Grade has started a Christmas Around The World project that we will finish when they get back in January. Each student is researching how Christmas is celebrated in a different country and is creating a PowerPoint presentation about it. They are learning how to use the Outline feature in Word to take their notes and then transfer that to a PowerPoint presentation.  6th Grade’s Cyber-Bullying Comics and their Persuasive Turkeys have been added to our Travel Scrapbook. Take a look!

7TH GRADE: 7th Grade continued to finish up their Cyber-bullying Glogs and analyzed the final results for the Human Genetics project. We will be finishing these up when we return from the Christmas break. 7th Grade also tried the type the lyrics activity. Ask them to sing you the chorus to the song! As their main Christmas activity, each 7th Grader was told that they won a shopping spree to one online store. They had to create a spreadsheet in Excel that would keep track of what they bought and keep a running total of what they spent including sales tax. The catch was they had to spend between $995 and $1000 including tax. They had fun shopping and most of them managed to spend within that $5 range. A few students figured out that some stores have loss-leader products that sell for nothing or almost nothing so they used these to hit the magic $1000 even total. Check out the Travel Scrapbook for 7th Grade’s Cyber-Bullying Glogs and their Persuasive Turkeys.

8TH GRADE: Did your 8th Grader come home singing some Christmas song you had never heard? That’s because they spent a class typing the lyrics as they listened. It’s much harder than you think but there were a few students who got almost all the lyrics correct! 8th Grade also went on a Shopping Spree this month – okay not a real one but they did get to window shop. Before they could shop, each student had to create a spreadsheet in Excel that would keep track of what they bought and keep a running total of what they spent including sales tax. Then they could go and shop but the catch was they had to spend between $995 and $1000 including tax. They had fun shopping and most of them managed to spend within that $5 range. A few students figured out that some stores have loss-leader products that sell for nothing or almost nothing so they used these to hit the magic $1000 even total. Check out the Travel Scrapbook for 8th Grade’s Cyber-Bullying PSAs and their Persuasive Turkeys.

Computer Lab News: Weeks 12-13

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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.