Second Quarter

t's hard to believe that we're only a few short weeks away from finishing the first half of the school year. I've received wonderful feedback from the teachers about how the students are navigating computers when not in the lab. Hooray! Here's what we're working on currently:

Kindergarten - 
My Kindergarten friends have loved drawing on the computer using ABCya Draw. Around Halloween they used various drawing tools to create a picture depicting a nighttime scene(science standard: SKE1. Students will describe time patterns (such as day to night and night to day) and objects (such as sun, moon, stars) in the day and night sky. a. Describe changes that occur in the sky during the day, as day turns into night, during the night, and as night turns into day. b.Classify objects according to those seen in the day sky and those seen in the night sky.) We will continue to explore this program while meeting the technology standard of drawing an original picture. This is no small task since they are using a mouse!

First -
In first grade, student have been using The Graph Club to graph and analyze data. From The Very Hungry Caterpillar to our favorite Halloween candy to gathering and analyzing data about the foods we eat, students are learning every aspect of the program AND how to look at data with different types of graphs.

Second - 
After finishing our work on drawing on the computer, we have moved onto concept mapping. Using their own curiosity about the world, students brainstormed various topics in a concept map, zeroed in on a specific topic, and generated questions to drive research. Students are note-taking in Kidspiration, connecting similar facts/details about their topic/main idea, and enhancing their information with color, graphics, and fonts. 

Third - 
Third grade is learning all about Internet research this quarter in the computer lab and ILC! Promoting the digital resources in Cobb Digital Library, students are using a variety of reference sources to create a concept map in BrainPop. This will be our final BrainPop project. Third grade teachers are excited about incorporating the program into their teaching second quarter. 

Fourth - 
Our fourth grade students are working with Office 365 again using PowerPoint to construct a presentation on one of the original 13 colonies. Using Trueflix (a Cobb Digital Library resource), they're note-taking either digitally or with pencil and paper to learn about the geography, people, daily life, and reasons those colonists settled where they did. We'll connect all their presentations into a hyperlinked map from which they can learn about the other 12. With that new found knowledge, we'll play KaHoot! a big hit every time we play! 

Fifth - 
Using their health standard on cyber safety, fifth graders  have been learning about how to navigate this world of social media and other forms of technology. Once they're "experts", students will use PowerPoint in Office365 and the app Animoto to work collaboratively on creating a public service announcement educating other fourth and fifth graders about how to stay safe in this technology driven world. ​