Our Last Week

It is with mixed emotions that I write this last post. This is our last week of school at Fort Craig and it is time for all of us to spread our wings and fly off to new schools. Although I am so sad to see our school closing, I am also excited (and a little scared!) to start my new adventure teaching technology at our new intermediate school, Coulter Grove. I will keep this blog open, but not updated, for a few months before switching to my new Coulter Grove website so check in over the summer to practice your keyboarding and to have some

 tech fun! I want to thank all of my Fort Craig students for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow right along with them-I started out as a Spanish teacher and now teach technology. Life is change. Before you leave this week, take some time to thank a teacher (or two or three) by sending an ecard. I know they would love to hear from you!

Spring Session Week 7

B1-2 Technology:

This week we will make sure our tech folders are all completed and ready for Portfolio night. First, practice some copy/paste and take the computer parts quiz. When you are finished, head to kerpoof

and make yourself a graduation card-be sure to include some text with some Fort Craig memories. Save the card as a jpg picture in your folder.

3-4 Technology:

1. Please take the elementary student survey

2. Make your own graduation video with Photostory 3. Use your Fort Craig wordle picture as one of your first slides. Don't forget to add text to tell about some of your favorite memories. Save it in your folder to show off on portfolio night!

Summer Session Week 6

B1-2 Technology:

powered by Fotopedia

1. Dance Mat Typing

2. The monarchs are back! Just as the next generation of real monarchs are heading back into our region, our paper monarchs have migrated back to the United States and Canada! We received paper butterflies from 37 different states as well as some from Canada and Mexico. Where did our butterflies land? Check the list to find out-new posts are still being added, so keep checking back! Although individual butterflies are not always posted, it looks like our large class butterflies landed in West Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Colorado.

3. Last week, we used Excel to make graphs of our first graders' heights. Let's review how cells are ordered on an excel graph by following the directions to make a cool butterfly picture (thanks to Barb Smith from the great Elementary Tech Teachers network for this idea!)

3-4 Technology:

1. Take this typing speed test and record your score. If your score is lower than last time, please take again. When you are done, you may play any of the keyboarding games while we wait for everyone to finish.

2. Last week we took some digital photos-this week, we get to make them really unique! Let's explore some photo editing at pixlr express   First, make a new folder labeled "My Photos" in your kidsave folder. Copy and paste any pictures you want to edit into that folder-be appropriate! Play around-you don't have to save the final version and can start over at any time.

Spring Session Week 5

B1-2 Technology:

1. Dance Mat Typing

2. Read Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Rosenthal

3. Just like our story, some things depend on how you look at them. When compared to some things you are short, but compared to other things you are tall. Open your folder and find the "I am taller/shorter than" document and create a picture in Paint, adding sentences in text boxes. While you are working, we will remeasure our first graders for the How Tall Is A First Grader project and make a graph.

4. Play some measuring games:

            Dinosaur Train 

            Measuring Up with Clifford

5. Check out some Tall Tales!

3-4 Technology:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99472898@N00/3875936992

1. Dance Mat Typing

2. We will discuss some tips for composing a picture with a digital camera and then head out to the playground to capture some memories!

Spring Session Week 4

B1-2 Technology:

1. Dance Mat Typing

2. Since this is Earth day week, let's talk about things we can do to help our planet. See how your choices matter at Eekoworld.

3. Check out these other Earth day games and activities at Funschool

3-4 Technology:

1. Dance Mat Typing-cover those keyboards!

2. We will read "If I Were In Charge of the World," by Judith Viorst. Click here to make your own "In Charge" poem. Copy and paste the final results into a Word document, format, add a border, and save in your folder.

3. Try some of these Earth Day games at Ecokids, Funschool, and Eekoworld

                          

                          

Spring Session Week 3

B-12 Technology:

1. Dance Mat Typing

2. Go to TumbleBooks and read Diary of a Worm

3. What else can you find in and around a pond? Open the Pond PowerPoint in your folder and add text, clip art, and slide transitions. 

4.  Play Pond Seek and Find
    Create a Pond

     Pond Coloring

     Duck, Think Outside the Flock

3-4 Technology:

1. Cover your keyboards and do some Dance Mat Typing

2. Let's discuss the advantages and disadvantages of online shopping. Congratulations-you have won a $1000 shopping spree, but since you can't leave school, you log in to Amazon! Use this spreadsheet to keep track of your spending. Continue spending your $1,000.00 on toys or other goodies and use a spreadsheet to keep the total cost of all the toys just under $1000.00, tax included. And don’t forget that the total cost of all the items (tax included) must fall between $995.00 and $1000.00 or you lose all the money.

Here’s more good news! If you are able to spend EXACTLY $1000.00, tax included, you win an additional $500.00 "imaginary" cash to spend.  Will YOU be the one?  Good luck! (Remember-this is pretend! You won't really get these purchases!)

3. If you have extra time, head back to Moneyville or try these other money games:

                    Ed's Bank

                    Lunch Lady

                    Trade West

                    

Spring Session Week 2

B1-2 Technology:

1. Dance Mat Typing

2. As part of your class pond unit, will read Make Way For Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. Did you  notice the ducklings' names were in alphabetical order? Microsoft Word can also put a list of words in ABC order. Let's give it a try with a list of five friends!

3.  Enjoy these pond activities:

     Create a Pond

     Pond Coloring

     Duck, Think Outside the Flock

3-4 Technology:

1. Keyboarding practice-Type to Learn or Dance mat

2. There are 3 main things we can do with money: spend it, save it, and give it away (charity). Unfortunately, I didn't win the megamillions lottery last week, but if you won, what would you do? Open "If I won the lottery" in your folder and write about these 3 things to do with your winnings.

3. Play Moneyville

Spring Session Week 1

B1-2 Technology:

 

1. Introduction to Dance Mat typing and review of home row keys.

2. It's Spring! Let's learn about this season with Brainpopjr.

3. Practice formatting with the Spring Word document in your folder.

4. If there is extra time, make a Spring picture in Paint.

3-4 Technology:

1. Keyboarding practice-Type to Learn or Dance mat for those in the "Underwear Club"

2. Use tagxedo to make your own Fort Craig word cloud. Pick a color theme and an appropriate shape! Save the image as a jpeg in your folder.

3. Log in to your kidblog  and write a post about starting our last session ever at Fort Craig. What do you hope to accomplish in the next 2 months before you leave this school? What will you miss?Write a reflection paragraph and insert your word cloud image.

Winter Session Week 10

B1-2 Technology:

1. Practice your keyboarding with Pop the Bubbles 

2. Let's review the water cycle!

3. Play the water cycle game

4.What can you see in the clouds? Draw with Klowdz and save your picture in your folder.

5. Extra time? Go to Kerpoof

3-4 Technology:

1. Make sure you have recorded a new typing time test in your folder. Pick any keyboarding game when you are done.

2. Free choice! Explore some things you have not tried on the Just for Fun page

Winter Session Week 9

B1-2 Technology:

1. Practice your keyboarding with Marcelino's Letters

2. Watch the video clip above from 4:10-8:56. The Cat in the Hat wears many hats. Find the Cat document in your folder and draw a new hat for the cat.

3. Play some Cat in the Hat games and watch some Video Clips from the pbskids show.

4.Are you getting excited for the Lorax movie? Check out the official site. Here are some more Lorax games. 

5. Visit Seussville and check out the games and video clips.

3-4 Technology:

What is your favorite Dr. Seuss book?

The Cat in the Hat

Horton Hears a Who

The Lorax

The Sneetches

The Grinch who stole Christmas

Horton Hatches an Egg

Hop on Pop

other

or View Results

Create your own poll at Flisti.com

Online gif creator

1. Go to 10fastfingers and take the typing speed test. Record the results in your folder. Play some other keyboarding games until everyone is finished.

2. Open the Cat in the Hat document in your folder. Make at least 3 different hats, saving them as cat1, cat2, cat3, etc. Use Picasion to make an animated gif image and embed it on your blog.
3. Check out the Lorax movie site and Seussville.
4. Read across America Week is not just about Dr. Seuss! You can play some other games from popular books here and here.
5. How about Tumblebooks or Tumblereaders?

Winter Session Week 8

B1-2 Technology:

1. Tux Typing Comet Zap

2. Let's talk about our solar system!

3. The planets move at different rates around the sun. One revolution is a year. Earth takes 365 days to revolve around the sun, but Mercury takes only 88 days. Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun, takes almost 165 years to go around the sun! Click here to see. how old you are on other planets. Check out some cool solar system pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope.
4. Planet pop-up
5. Roving on Mars
6. Rocket Builder
7. Kerpoof Spell a Picture- can you spell the planets?

3-4 Technology:

1. Type to Learn

2. 

3. Ten Things to Bring to a Desert Island

          Open a new Word document and center your title

          Start your numbered list on the left-format bullets and numbering

          Highlight your words and select Table, Sort to put your things in alphabetical order

          Add a page border of palm trees by going to Format, Borders and Shading, page border, art-pick 

                 a 20 pt. width. Save document in your folder

4. Complete all the missions in Surfswell Island

Winter Session Week 7

B1-2 Technology:

1. Valentine Typing

2. Catch some hearts
3. Check out some hearts in nature

4. Let's practice copying and pasting! We will use image chef word mosaic and candy heart maker to make some hearts that we will copy and paste onto a word document.

5. Listen to Arthur's Valentine
6. Valentine coloring pages

3-4 Technology:

http://www.aduckinherpond.com/2012/02/ode-to-pbj-and-how-i-love-thee/

1. Type to Learn

2. Read Porcupining: A Prickly Love Story 

3. Let's brainstorm some pairs that belong together like macaroni and cheese, hot dogs and buns, etc. Use magic widgets to write a love letter or love note from one to the other and then embed the note on your kidblog. Feel free to decorate with some animated hearts!

MySpace Love Note

4. Play some valentine games  here,  here, or here

Winter Session Week 6

B1-2 Technology:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/4351548677/

1.Valentine Typing

2. Things I love! We will make a 6 slide powerpoint-you pick the font, clip art, and slide transitions.

3. If you finish early, play some winter and Valentines Day games:

Snowfriends

Catch the Hearts

Valentines Coloring

Extreme Florist

3-4 Technology:

1. Type to Learn

2. Use your biography research to make a Biocube at Read Write Think

Winter Session Week 5

B1-2 Technology:

1. Play Spider Typer

2. Read Lewis Cardinal's First Winter

3. Let's check in on our monarchs that have migrated to Mexico? How do they survive the Winter?

4. Open your folder and find the Animals in Winter powerpoint. We will learn add clipart, format the font, and learn how to add slide transitions.
5. Play The Migration Game

3-4 Technology:

1. Type to Learn

2. Doodle for Google "If I could travel in time, I'd visit..."

You can check out some past doodles here and winners from last year's contest here.

3. Start your research for your biography project. How about using a kid friendly search engine like 

    Kid Rex? Don't forget to save a picture, get a quote, and copy the url of the websites you used. If you are looking for a famous Tennessean idea, check out this webpage.

Winter Session Week 4

B1-2 Technology:

1. Play Spider Typer to warm up our fingers!

2. Read 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch

3. Check out our Fort Craig page at the Winter Wonderland Wiki and see our Winter movies.

4. Use the Little Explorers Online Weather Dictionary to search for the answers to our weather questions.

5. Play Snow Friends

3-4 Technology:

1. Type to Learn

2. Check out the Internet Search page of this blog. We will learn how to use Boolean logic and keywords to refine our searches, compare some different search engines, and play some search games.

Winter Session Week 3

B1-2 Technology:

1. What can you build with 100 snowballs?

2. Watch Brainpopjr. Winter

3. What is Winter like at our school today? Let's check the temperature at Weather Underground. Next, we will take our digital cameras outside and work in small groups taking pictures of winter images. We will put our best pictures together to upload to the Winter Wonderland Wiki project so we can see what winter looks like at schools across the country.
4. No snow? No problem! Make your own snow day flakes.

3-4 Technology:

1. Type to Learn

2. Since you are doing biography projects in your classrooms, let's check out the biography of a famous computer pioneer, Ada Lovelace, at Brainpop

3. Where would Ada Lovelace fit on the technology timeline? The timeline only goes to 1990. What new technology can you think of that has been invented since then?
4. Complete the following activities in order

What can you build with 100 snowballs? Write about it and save it in your folder.
Computer Part Pinball-find all 10 words

Goldburger to Go

Way of an idea 2

Winter Session Week 2

B1-2 Technology:

1. Play Pop the Bubbles

2. Read Martin McGregor's Snowman

3. What would your life be like if you were a snowman? Open the word document in your folder, complete the     sentences about things you eat, like, hate, etc and insert your photo into the snowman's head. We will print these to display in the hall.

4. Build a snowman , try a Snowman puzzle, and play Star Drops

3-4 Technology:

ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

1. Type to Learn

2. Find 3 winter images with creative commons licenses and save them in your folder. Use Poetry Blender to make a Winter story and embed the results on your kidblog. Check out some of the other things you can do and embed from ImageChef.

3. Play some winter games like Star Drops, Snowball toss, Downhill challenge, and Make a Flake.

Winter Session Week 1

B1-2 Technology:

1. Play Key Krusher

2. Did you get any new technology over the holidays? Click on the wall above and tell me about it!

3. Watch Brainpop New Year

4. Use Paint to show your New Year resolution. Make sure you add text-This year I ...  Save the picture in your folder as a jpeg.

5. Try New Year Blast

3-4 Technology:

1. Type to Learn

2. What are your New Year's resolutions? Resolve to laugh more! Click here to see why laughter is the best medicine.  It does not even have to be real laughter.

3. Make a 2 slide powerpoint of a joke and save it in your class joke folder (NOT YOUR OWN FOLDER) with your name-Lori'sjoke, for example. Don't forget to format text, background fill effects, and insert appropriate clipart! Use custom animation (slide show, custom animation) to make your words enter and give your pictures effects. Add a slide transition. (slide show, slide transition)  Don't forger to watch it! (slide show, view show)

Check out the following sites for some joke inspiration:

Yahoo kids jokes

Girafian jokes

4. Try New Year Blast and other games on this site