Week of November 1st

Kindergarten
After reading the rhyming story, Mrs. McNosh Puts Out the Wash, kindergarten students used Early Learning Toolkit to illustrate rhyming pictures. Each student was given a card with a picture on it and asked to think of words that rhyme with it. This activity helped students review how to launch a program independently from the dock, use the new paper tool to find their writing template, and use the drawing tools to add details to their drawings. Students were also introduced to the “shift” key and given instruction on typing their names with the proper casing.

First Grade
A special thank you to the first grade teachers who shared their students for an extra lab session this week. Each class is participating in an online collaborative writing project called Write On with other first and second grade classes around the United States and Canada. The students are writing progressive stories, where each class in the group writes one part of a story. The first class brainstorms and writes the intro paragraph. Then the next class reads the paragraph(s), brainstorms and decides how to they want to continue the story. This will continue until the last class on the list writes the ending and gives the story a title. Pictures are drawn to accompany each section of the story. The completed digital story will be published with the online tool VoiceThread in early December.

Second Grade
In preparation for the second grade program, A Small Part of the World, second graders used the online encyclopedia World Book for Kids to learn about a country from around the world. This week, the students were challenged to brainstorm nouns, verbs, and adjectives that start with the same beginning sound as their country. Next week, students will use their parts of speech worksheets to write and publish alliteration stories.

Third Grade
Third graders used the program Microsoft Word to publish haiku poetry. Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry consisting of three lines. The first and last lines have five syllables and the middle line has seven syllables. The lines rarely rhyme, and the theme of the poetry is usually related to nature in some way. First, students visited the website www.freedigitalphotos.net to find a picture from nature that interested them. Next, they learned how to copy and paste the picture along with the URL address into Word. Students then wrote their haiku and learned various tools to format text. Look for their poems at Poetry in the Park.

Fourth Grade
Fourth graders are adding finishing touches to their news animation stories. I was thrilled with the creativity of the projects and the collaboration of those students who chose to work with a partner. Projects will be finalized this week and published at the end of next week.