Third Graders Learn About Simple Machines

Effective educators, no matter what they teach, must have a basic understanding of how students think and learn when designing learning experiences. One of the perspectives that underlies my philosophy of teaching and learning is Lev Vygotsky's socialcultural learning theory. A Soviet psychologist from the 20th century, Vygotsky believed learning occurs in social contexts often with adults or more capable partners guiding students through the learning process. His theory states that each learner has different levels of abilities and an optimal zone in which learning takes place. This zone, called the zone of proximal development, can be maximized if a child receives guidance and support from a skilled partner. Many of the projects in my classroom follow the instructional strategy of cooperative learning where students work in small, mixed-ability groups in hands-on projects to take advantage of the skills and strengths of their classmates.

This week, third graders worked with partners to learn about simple machines. After a lesson to build background knowledge about the qualities of simple machines and the six different types, students set off across campus on a photo scavenger hunt. Using digital cameras, students were asked to take pictures of each kind of simple machine. Photos were uploaded to the computers and used to create posters in Comic Life. Teamwork was required throughout all stages of the process as students supported each other during their learning.

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.

First Graders Play Copycat with Kidspiration

First graders become very well-versed using the tool Kidspiration. In addition to making webs of their spelling words each week, student use the various reading, math and social studies/science templates included in the program to compliment their weekly stories, practice math skills, and organization information about topics such as the weather, their bodies, and the solar system. This week, students used virtual pattern blocks within Math View to create pictures.

Each student was given a bag of random pattern blocks to create a picture. The children were asked to use all their blocks in the picture and were only allowed to trade blocks with a neighbor who was also willing to trade. After designing their picture on the computer table, students had to recreate their picture using virtual blocks on the computer. This activity fosters spatial awareness, an important skill for developing readers as well as beginning geometry skills. Students used rotation tools to help flip blocks and the color palette to match colors between the real blocks and virtual blocks. Once their picture was copied, students were asked to write at least one sentence about their design, remembering that a sentence always starts with a capital letter and ends with punctuation.

Mid-October Lab Update

Kindergarten
The kindergarten students have been busy learning how to use Early Learning Toolkit. They have now been introduced to all the drawing tools: pencil, line, rectangle, circle, paint bucket, and spray can. They are navigating the tool bar to print independently as well as change program templates. They will continue using the program during center time in their classrooms. Next week, they will begin learning how to use visual mapping program Kidspiration.




First Graders
Any one walking into the lab on Monday would find first graders full of giggles as they used Scholastic's Story Starters to write silly songs, poems, letters, and stories.


Second Graders
With their North American continent study coming to an end, second graders created fact webs in Kidspiration to share interesting facts they have learned the last few weeks.

Third Graders
During their first rotation through the computer lab, third graders used the multimedia authoring tool, MediaBlender, to create slideshows on the scientific method. On day 1, students reviewed the drawing tools they have used in previous years. Next, they learned how to create and edit textboxes to add content. On days 2 and 3, they made slides for each step of the process and learned how to make buttons to connect their slides together. Some students even learned how to add sounds to their slideshows.

Fourth Graders
Fourth graders will begin their second lab rotation on Wednesday. While the first rotation focused on basic skills, their next project will be much more exciting. Students will learn how to create stopmotion animations about current evens using a new program called Frames.

Tasty Graphing in First Grade

What could be more fun than graphing Skittles candies and then eating them? First graders enjoyed working with the program The Graph Club to do just that. After sorting and counting their Skittles, each student recorded the results from their individual bags on a teacher-created template. Next, they were asked to use the program's note box to write two sentences describing their graph along with a model number representing their bag. This activity was a fun hands-on way to explain how bar graphs and pie charts are useful tools to display numerical information.

Second Graders Use Neighborhood Map Machine

Learning about maps and globes are essential skills of the second grade curriculum, and a great way to give students hands on experiences with maps is using the program Neighborhood Map Machine. Neighborhood Map Machine allows students to explore different kinds of maps as well as create maps of their own. Lessons and activities within the program include learning about concepts such as grid coordinates, location, scale, and compass navigation.

During the first week with the program, students learned how to read grid coordinates to add symbols to a grid map. This week, they will use the program's compass to navigate various maps to solve mysteries. Next week, they will take on the role of cartographer as they begin designing their own map by adding roads, buildings, parks, street symbols, bodies of water, parks, etc. The students will also be challenged to write directions to navigate between two buildings on their map.

Word Processing & Keyboarding in Fourth Grade

A major goal of the fourth grade technology curriculum is to ensure students are comfortable with basic word processing skills such formatting and aligning text. Students practiced underlining, bolding, and highlighting text, changing font types and sizes, centering titles by creating Wacky Web Tales, and cutting and pasting text. They also practiced saving documents by navigating the Finder. They were introduced to the concept of a remote server for saving work and practiced logging in to the server using their own username and passwords. Using a server will help students work on files from multiple locations.

This week, students will continue to use Microsoft Word to publish a Spanish writing assignment. They will also be introduced to the program Type to Learn 4 to develop touch typing skills. Students will keyboard 20 minutes twice a week progressing through 34 lessons and 6 assessments at their own pace. Type to Learn 4 provides demonstration, practice, and assessment, with continuous reinforcement on the home row, ASDF JKL;. It teaches proper fingering for each key (letter, number, symbols) and emphasizes both accuracy and words per minute speed. Speedskins are also used to reinforce memorization of the keys. Many students will surpass the year end goal of 15 words per minute (WPM) with 95% accuracy.