This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the interest of improving my craft.

Week ending 04/28/12

Kindergarten

What we covered / did / explored:

• We usually start each lesson with something fun as a warmup. This week, because we had a lot to do, I had students sit down on the carpet in front of the SMART Board as soon as they logged in so we could start immediately. This way, we had a better chance of a) everyone finishing and b) getting the most amount of free/play time possible (once the lesson is complete.)
• We started with a discussion of the days of the week. Kids were solid on them, as I expected. As I handed out random worksheets (GASP! Worksheets? In Computer Lab?) for each student (example: here) I explained we would be watching a movie called The Very Hungry Caterpillar (by Eric Carle); students would have to identify the food the caterpillar ate on their particular day.
• The students listened intently as the movie played; we stopped from time to time to be sure everyone knew which day of the week they were watching for.
• I stopped the movie just before the very end when the caterpillar turns into a butterfly and opened a SMART Notebook activity that reinforced the days of the week and some simple numeracy skills. (Every student had a turn at the board, which is always my objective.)
• We then watched the remainder of the movie and saw the caterpillar change into a butterfly. I stopped briefly to discuss the concept of symmetry (which they knew well) and then introduced their performance task, creating a butterfly using Tux Paint. It has a wonderful “kaleidoscope” tool that allows very rapid symmetrical drawings; most kids can outline something that approximates a butterfly shape very quickly and easily. From there I again reviewed the concepts of symmetry and showed how the “bucket fill” tool can be used to color in different sections so that symmetry was preserved.
• With that, students scampered off to their workstations and began creating their artwork. The example above is exemplary and adds details I never even mentioned in my example.

What I learned / observed / inferred:

• Students know the days of the week but can get confused when seeing them in printed form.
• Some students created butterflies without the symmetry tool but were still very successful.
• One student located the butterfly stamp and used that in his project. I give him credit for navigating the software in an area we hadn’t really explored in detail yet (stamps).

What students can do at home:

• For students that have Tux Paint software, the butterfly activity is easily replicated. Ask your child to show you how!
• Software is hardly necessary for drawing butterflies; any paper and crayon will do!
• Watch The Very Hungry Caterpillar with your child and have them identify details from the movie.

First Grade

What we covered / did / explored:

• This week we also got started right away with the lesson, moving free explore/play time to the end of the period. The students didn’t seem to mind!
• We began with a discussion of tally marks and used the “Graph and Tally” activity at Cookie.com to have each student show their knowledge. Everyone sailed through this, effectively making it our warmup.
• We then discussed surveys and their purpose. We conducted our own simple survey of pets in the class and recorded the data on the SMART Board. I then demonstrated how to enter the data into a spreadsheet and how to access the chart and picture-graphs that were automagically generated. We discussed the data, asking questions and exploring trends, doing some basic mental math.
• Students then went to their workstations where they entered the data themselves (I left the SMART notebook page on the screen) and generated the table, chart and picture-graph. They entered their names and we printed the one page they wished to take home.

What I learned / observed / inferred:

• I hate how some Flash websites don’t perform correctly with my PC and the SMART Board. I wish I knew if the issue was hardware or software based but it’s very frustrating when activities are counter-intuitive. That was the case with our simulation at the beginning.
• I think the spreadsheet activity could be more robust, perhaps with more rows of data and the ability to enter text as well as numbers.
• The creepy computer-generated audio in the instructions was a fun “teachable moment” – kids wondered why it sounded so funny. We discussed computer-generated speech and how it was different from real human speech.

What students can do at home:

• Have your child create surveys for any subject of interest; make it fun!
• Play the “Graph and Tally” activity at Cookie.com together.

Second Grade

What we covered / did / explored:

• We warmed up with Typing Pal, recognizing members of the “Zero to Hero Club” for getting no mistakes on their practice lessons.
• When finished, students gathered on the carpet in front of the SMART Board to review what we worked on last week – our list of coupon ideas for Mom. We demonstrated how to open files from the network share, “enable editing” in Office 2010 (thank you, Microsoft), and the use of bullet lists.
• We then showed students how to open the template we use for this project and how to create their coupons. We demonstrated some of the more advanced features but I always like to let the students explore and find new features on their own, too.
• When finished, students saved their files to their network drive and either played games or helped others.

What I learned / observed / inferred:

• As good as the students are getting with file opening and saving, I am wondering how much easier this would be in Google Docs as opposed to PowerPoint, and, how nice it would be to have automatic saving of files. Hmmmmm…
• It really helped having the students brainstorm all five coupon ideas in advance. That was always the achilles’ heel for this project. Building in some basic word processing skills helped too.

What students can do at home:

• Coupon books like this have been made long before computers or PowerPoint. Challenge your child to create one, with or without technology! (We’ll be doing these for Father’s Day, too.)

Third Grade

What we covered / did / explored:

• We warmed up with Typing Pal, recognizing members of the “Zero to Hero Club” for getting no mistakes on their practice lessons.
• Students created Mother’s Day greetings either using Glogster EDU (above) or Kerpoof. Some finished; others will need to complete them next week.

What I learned / observed / inferred:

• I essentially said this last week, but. the better the user interface (UI) is on a program, the more time I can spend answering questions from those who need help. This is one reason why I love Glogster so much.
• Praise aside, quirky problems (like images failing to upload) can derail projects quickly. I wish there was a way to troubleshoot these issues but it’s nearly impossible when it happens inconsistently.

What students can do at home:

• If students remember their Glogster EDU login, they can access this resource from home. If they don’t remember the login, please contact me.
• Practice keyboarding with Typing Pal. Celebrate with them when they achieve “0 errors” because accuracy is more important than speed. Speed comes as their finger muscles mature!

-and-

Fourth Grade

What we covered / did / explored:

• Today’s lesson was a follow-up to last week’s but with significant hands-on work. After a brief warmup with Typing Pal, we gathered on the carpet to watch the video above, “Designing Uncharted 2 with SketchUp.” This quickly got everone’s attention as several students were familiar with the “Uncharted” video game series. This short, powerful video explains how professional video game designers used the free Google Sketchup* to design levels and scenery in the game. It provided me the perfect opportunity to hammer home my main point – here, in fourth grade, students have access to the very same software professional video game designers use. I reminded them that when they look back at today’s technology 10+ years from now, it will seem crude and archaic. I also pointed out that any one of them could grow up to be a game designer – they only need the desire to do so.
• For the performance task, students had to create a basic structure in Sketchup after I demonstrated the basic features. Most were moderately successful, considering that for many this was their first exposure to the tool.
• We also explained how to access and incorporate items from 3D Warehouse, a free collection of models built and submitted by people worldwide.

What I learned / observed / inferred:

• Kids LOVE this tool. It is more complex than most of the software we use in the lab but that didn’t slow many people down. I need to do a better job with the hands-on demo at the beginning of the lesson however. And, we need better tutorial resources (anything on YouTube is blocked.)

What students can do at home:

• Download Sketchup IMMEDIATELY if you haven’t already. The asterisk above is in reference to the news announced THIS WEEK that Google has SOLD Sketchup to a company called Trimble. There is no telling how long the free software will be available, so, get it now while you can, right here: http://sketchup.google.com/.
• Talk about design careers with your child. Sketchup is a powerful tool to visualize just about anything. Let their imagination run wild as you ponder different careers with your child. How might this software help them discover their calling?