We have been back at work for two weeks now and things are certainly on a roll! Each class has so many fantastic things happening that it is hard to keep up.
Second Grade has been diligently researching their chosen desert animal and printing out a picture. They used their research to make a bubble map using the Kidspiration program. This program has proven to be so amazing on many different levels.
Third Grade students are making Keynote Presentations (Macs version of the PowerPoint) about emotions. As a class we brainstormed about different emotions that we feel, then we practiced what our faces would look like for those particular emotions. They then chose 5 emotions to feature in their presentation. Using the built in cameras in the computers, each student took a picture of their faces portraying each of their chosen emotions. Some of them thought long and hard about how their mouth, eyes, and body posture should be. Next week we will be working on adding slides, uploading pictures and text.
Fourth Grade has been traveling the world with Google Earth. What fun it is to look up the Eiffel Tower, The Forbidden City, and even our own houses!! In groups, the students learned how to place mark locations around the world. Next week, we will be using the ruler tool in the Google Earth program to measure the distances between our place marks!
Fifth Grade tried to work with the Dance Mat Typing online program for keyboarding, but we have been experiencing some problems with that. BUMMER! It is both fun and makes learning those much needed keyboarding skills fun. Next week we will be talking about what HTML is, what is stands for, and how it is used!!
Sixth and Seventh Grade classes have been working on the web design of their weebly pages. Each student has picked a theme, site title, and has had a few postings. We have also learned what a widget is ( anything that can be embedded into a page with HTML such as a stock market ticker, a clock, a map pin pointing places you have been) and how to post them onto their pages. Some of them have really taken off!! We will continue to work on these projects.
Eighth Grade students are taking a walk down memory lane while working on their project for the fourth quarter, a Memories of St Francis iMovie. So far they have loaded pictures onto their computers, moved those pictures into the iMovie program and are working on putting them into chronological order. Next up will be setting the duration of and placing transitions between each slide.
WHEW!! We are busy and having a great time.
Happy Easter.
