Summer Session Week 2

B1-2 Technology:

This week we reviewed parts of the computer, discussing the difference between hardware and software. We watched a Brainpop video about computer parts and enjoyed Moby's joke-What is an astronauts favorite computer part? The spacebar! We went to our Fort Craig homepage on the internet to learn about minimize, maximize, taskbar, and back arrow. We looked at our address in the address bar and talked about how every place we go in "cyberspace" has an address, just like the real places in our communities. We use bookmarks and the favorites list so we don't always have to type out site addresses. Places that we go to each week in the tech lab are kept at ikeepbookmarks. Students practiced finding ikeepbookmarks in our favorites list and then had fun with some mouse skill games. Students also had a chance to explore my hands on computer part station and check out some of the "innards."

3-4 Technology:

What a great response to our first "I Can Do It" challenge-I think I will need to get a bigger can! Stay tuned for the next challenge. This week we reviewed the parts of the computer, focusing on input and output devices. Students completed an excel labelling document (giving us a chance to review files, folders, drives, and how to find and save them on our school computers) and then played a fun computer part hangman type game called "Don't Squash the Monkey!" Students finished up with some mouse skill games and took turns exploring the hands on computer part station.

Summer Session Week 1

B1-2 Technology:
Our first week was spent mainly going over procedures-a review for the olders, but new to our younger classmates and new students to our school. We talked about the difference between a computer, monitor, mouse, and keyboard and watched the computer mouse song. After discussing the desktop and icons, we explored our Fort Craig homepage and used the Paint program to practice mouse control. Since our theme this session is "We Are Family," we used the Paint tools to make a picture of our house. The lifeskills of patience and flexibility, as well as the edit undo and file new commands, came in handy!

3-4 Technology:
After reviewing procedures (I clap, you clap, hands go in your lap) and assigning computer seats, students learned how to log in to Type to Learn and did the first lesson and game. Our classes almost always start with 10 minutes of keyboarding. We discussed the new "I Can Do It" can for completing optional computer challenges. The first challenge was to make sure the Fort Craig homepage is bookmarked at home and follow the links on the page to this blog and to ikeepbookmarks. We practiced in class, and then students added a "sticky" to the Summer fun wallwisher and drew a summer fun picture in Paint. While they were "painting" we did a Summer fun madlib together as a class.

How was your Summer?

Spring Session Week 8

Things are winding down! Kindergarten had pinata parties, B1-2 made cool magazine covers with their picture on the front for "Tech Student of the Year" and 3-4 added music and titles to their Fort Craig movie. I hope parents got a chance to check out all our hard work during Portfolio Night! It has been a great year-I'm planning new projects for after Summer Break. Hope everyone has a good one!

Spring Session Week 7

Kindergarten Spanish:
Our last week of the session before our pinata party next week! We read Paco and the Giant Chile Plant by Keith Polette and rotated through 4 different centers: hi ho cherryo, farm and transportation play, playdoh fruits and vegetables, and fruit salad minibook creation. I've really enjoyed these little guys this year and look forward to seeing them next year in technology class.

B1-2 Technology:
My first attempt with a Google Earth Lit Trip went well! We watched Make Way For Ducklings and then tracked the journey of the ducklings through Boston using google earth. It was interesting to compare the street views of today's Boston with the illustrations in the 1940's story. Afterwards, we used Kerpoof to make pond pictures that also included a key point learned this session about ponds.

3-4 Technology:
As a year end project, 3-4 students are making a movie called "Fort Craig Fun" using Windows MovieMaker, a free program you can easily download if it is not already installed on your computer. This week, the students imported their pictures from the yearbook folders and added video transitions. They also made their own original music to use in their movie at the website MyBytes Students created a username and password so this site can also be used from home-enjoy the music!

Spring Session Week 6

Kindergarten Spanish:
Feliz Cinco de Mayo! It was time to paint the maracas this week-I hope they made it home in one piece. They turned out great, though I am glad to be done with "art" projects for this session!

B1-2 Technology:
Dance Mat keyboarding to start-some of the students have already made it to level 2! We reviewed our powerpoint skills this week by making a powerpoint of pond life, complete with clip art, formatted text, and slide transitions.

3-4 Technology:
We started class this week with a one minute typing test before moving on to some keyboarding games. The students had fun using powerpoint to make business cards for their market day-we formatted the slide design for a "professional" looking card, then copy and pasted it to get 6 cards which I printed on cardstock.

Spring Session Week 5

Kindergarten Spanish:
For our 5th week of the session, and in preparation for next week's Cinco de Mayo, kindergarten made paper mache maracas. Gracias to all our parent helpers!! I would love to be able to post some pictures, but there was no time (and to much ooey gooey) to take them-hopefully I'll get some next week when we paint. In the meantime, they need to dry and be stuffed with semillas before I can attach the stick handle.

B1-2 technology:
The children took a walking field trip to the greenbelt this week, and we discussed the things they would see (and saw) in a pond. We put the ideas into a word document, learned how to copy and paste text (a challenge-left click highlight, right click copy, right click paste-yikes!) and made a "word cloud" with the great site Wordle. The kids had a great time customizing their word cloud and we printed the results to hang in the classrooms.


3-4 technology:
In preparation for Market Day, this week was all about money. We learned about supply and demand with lemonaid stand and saved money with Ed's Bank. The real fun, though, was doing some online shopping with a spreadsheet and $1000 pretend money-there were a few students who didn't quite grasp that "pretend" aspect and wondered when their goodies would be shipped!