K-8 Library and Computer Class Newsletter

Transcription

1 K-8 Library and Computer Class Newsletter K-2nd Library Class Students in Kindergarten, 1 st and 2 nd grade listened to award winning books each week. They learned how to analyze text, compare and contrast so they could vote on their favorite Red Clover book. The winner of the BCEMS Red Clover Program is Let s Do Nothing. They loved going into our voting booth and placing their ballot into the slot. Students participated in library class by acting, sharing, movement, music, dramatic narrative, drawings, worksheets, graphic organizers, group writing and many other activities to help with their comprehension. These activities promote a productive and fun library class. They continue to learn to interact with literature and media using good listening skills. Library and literacy skills are threaded throughout the lesson and include title, author, illustrator, publisher, copyright date, setting, characters, illustrations and text. We reinforce knowing the difference between fiction and non-fiction, parts of a book, learning how to make predictions, inferences, and connections within a story and between different books. We ask students to interact with the stories, look for deeper meanings and participate in group discussions. Students learn library citizenship when selecting their books and how to take good care of their library books. Each week students check out their library books with great enthusiasm. 1 st -2 nd Grade Computer Students created a page for an animal book with facts, pictures and a sentence. Students created an excel spreadsheet and chart about their favorite ice cream. Then they created a map of their bedroom/house using a painting program. They created stories using story plant, a safe program on the web. They explored an interactive science program using the Promethean Board. Students are practicing their typing skills using our typing programs as well as creating name poems. They will also be learning about copyright issues and creative commons. Second grade students will also begin learning how to use our library web page, Destiny Quest, to look up books and information to help them find books in third grade. 3rd Grade Library/Media Class

2 The dragon shows up in many Chinese folktales while Baba Yaga shows up in many Russian folktales. Third grade students finished their class painted essay based on comparing and contrasting why the dragon is important to the Chinese and why Baba Yaga is important to the Russians. They created a PowerPoint slide show on China or Russia. They looked up facts in our filtered library catalog: Destiny Quest. They learned how to right-click, copy and paste, minimize, maximize and navigate back and forth between programs. They found maps of their country, photos, related graphics and a bibliography. They created an original painting representing their country and inserted it into their PowerPoint. Students heard all ten Red Clover Books, rated them and then voted on their favorite book. Third and fourth graders finished the Red Clover unit by working together and creating a mural representing elements from all ten books. Next we worked on a biography scavenger hunt and went to the computers to make a biography trading card and an autobiographic trading card. For the rest of the year we will be working on exploring atlas s, Google maps, spreadsheets, charts, tall tales and genre review. Third graders have practiced their typing throughout the semester. Students interact with the stories, look for deeper meanings and participate in group discussions. Each week students check out their library books with enthusiasm. 4th Grade Library/Media Class Fourth graders finished a class painted essay based on comparing and contrasting Champ sightings in Lake Champlain to Loch Ness Monster sightings in Scotland. They created a PowerPoint slide show Vermont and the Abenaki. This is in collaboration with the 4 th grade teachers where students explored how the Abenaki use to live and compared it to how they live now. Students looked up facts in our filtered library catalog: Destiny Quest. They learned how to right-click, copy and paste, minimize, maximize and navigate back and forth between programs. They found maps of Vermont, photos, related graphics and a bibliography. They created an original painting representing their country and inserted it into their PowerPoint. Students then heard all ten Red Clover Books, rated them and then voted on their favorite book. Third and fourth graders finished the Red Clover unit by creating a mural representing elements from all ten books. Next we worked on a biography scavenger hunt and went to the computers to make a biography trading card and an autobiographic trading card using a class photo. For the rest of the year we will be working on exploring DCF (Dorothy

3 Canfield Fisher) books, Google Earth and Google maps, spreadsheets, charts, poetry and library skills review. Fourth graders have practiced their typing throughout the semester. Students interact with the stories, look for deeper meanings and participate in group discussions. Each week students check out their library books with enthusiasm. 5 th Grade Students worked on a PowerPoint presentation on the Revolutionary War in collaboration with their social studies teacher. Students learned how to research using books, encyclopedias, and the internet. Students learned what makes a good, clear slide, how to insert multiple slides, create titles, and many other aspects of PowerPoint. At the end of the project the students presented their PowerPoint as part of their social studies grade in their classroom with their teacher. We took part in an interactive virtual game on the Revolutionary War. Students are working on a panda adventure by taking a virtual tour of a natural panda habitat. They will create a Panda habitat at a zoo. They will use Microsoft publisher to create a "save the pandas" poster that included a title, reasons pandas are endangered, 3 web sites related to saving the pandas, pictures, and other information. Finally, students will be creating an all about me offline web page in Microsoft Publisher. They will use digital cameras to put a picture of themselves on their page. Students will continue working on their typing skills. 6 th Grade Computer Class Medieval PowerPoint Slide Show: Students created a medieval slide show using Microsoft Power Point. They selected a peasant, knight, nun or blacksmith and described what this person s life was like: what they ate, what they wore, where they lived, what they looked like, links, bibliography and what they learned about their person. This slide show was designed to coincide with their medieval unit and their work was displayed on Medieval Open House Night. Students created personal magazine covers to learn the program, and then they created magazine covers on the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. They created a 10 slide PowerPoint Presentation that included cover, Google maps, information, photos, spreadsheet, charts, bibliography and wrote about what they learned covering the Japan s earthquake and tsunami current events and technology. Students continue to work to increase their keyboarding (typing) skills.

4 7 th Grade Computer Class Projects Typing Practice: Students have been reinforcing their fundamental typing skills. Revolutionary War PowerPoint: Using previously gained knowledge of the Revolutionary War from history class, students were asked to create a Microsoft Power Point on a specific Revolutionary War figure. They were given an approved list of people who participated in the Revolutionary War or who were the leading political figures. For the first class they are asked to research their specific figure and come up with what they did before the revolution and what their job was and what their home life was like. The second class they are asked to find an event before the war that affected their person s life. The third class they are asked to find a battle from the war that affected their person. The fourth class they are asked to come up with a controversial action taken by their person and explain why they may have chosen to make that decision. In the fifth class they learn how to create a timeline on Microsoft Excel. Each step is due at the end of class and they are given a participation grade for each day which will be calculated into their final project grade. After this basic research is done the students created a Microsoft Power Point that tells the story of their Revolutionary War figure before and during the war. They add animation, graphics, pictures, maps and sound to make the presentation exciting. Vermont Interactive Map Project: This project introduces students to several features of Google Maps that they do not normally use. This project will ask them to explore the state of Vermont and to create points of interest in the state using history, geography or local interest categories. They will add photos and mark out places that they have visited or would like to visit in the future. They will do research on the points of interest that they choose to come up with a few sentences on what makes it interesting. The whole project will be a collaborative effort for each class. 8 th Grade Class Projects: Typing Practice: Students have been using the computer program Mavis Beacon to teach them fundamental typing skills. The program has challenges that each student must complete. Historical Lunch Multi-Media Project: Microsoft Word and Windows Movie Maker. Students are asked to choose a historical figure from a list that

5 includes famous kings and queens, famous scientists/inventors, authors, musicians, painters, pilots/astronauts, explorers and famous women. They need to research their historical figure and come up with answers to the interview questions like a reporter might ask; phrasing the answers as if they were that person. They are also asked to come up with a question that they would want to ask their historical figure if that person was still alive as well as two quotes from their historical figure. The second step in this project is to take the information that they learned and turn it into a video using the program called Windows Movie Maker. Here, the students will gather pictures of their historical figure, create film credits and captions in between the photos. They will have their photo taken by the teacher in order to create a puppet that they will then use to simulate a lunch interview with the person they chose. The puppet show will be recorded with a video camera and added to the photos they gathered. They will also use a Flip video recorder to record a short clip of themselves explaining what question they would ask their historical figure and why. In the end, the students will have explored video editing, video recording, research, sound editing and the general creation of a short video. Google Sketch-Up Contest: This contest is designed to introduce students to an architectural drawing program. They will come up with something they want to make an architectural drawing of like a room, a building, various landscapes or an entire city. They will then use the program called Google Sketch-Up to create their idea in a two dimensional model.