Grade 4 and up

After students have learned finger placement for all letters use this lesson to:

1. teach students how to click, drag, and position windows in Microsoft Windows.
2. teach students how to have a browser window and Microsoft Word window open at the same time
3. review keyboarding all letters
4. review changing font size, bold, and Enter key
5. review keyboarding without looking at the keys
6. review current events

Planning:

For this lesson you will need to have a link to a news article available for your students. On-line magazines and newspapers will work. There are News sites made especially for kids. Check these out.
Find a short article for your grade level because showing students how to click and drag windows will take up about 10 minutes.

Practice clicking and dragging windows yourself before class. Your goal is to show your students how to have your news article website and a new document in Microsoft Word open on the screen at the same time. Like this:

Steps for modeling this in class are below.

Time for class:

1. Have students launch their Internet Browser using the icon on the desktop. Model for them positioning the window by clicking Restore icon top right corner.
   • Using the mouse, click and hold down the very top blue bar and move the window all the way to the left. Resize the window so that it takes up half the size of the screen by hovering the mouse over the right border of the window until you see a double arrow, clicking the border, holding down and dragging left to resize the window.
2. Have students launch Microsoft Word or your word processor by using the Start Menu>Programs> Microsoft Word. Model how to position the Word window on the right side. it’s just the opposite ofhow you positioned the browser window.
   • Using the mouse, click and hold down the very top blue bar and move the window all the way to the right. Resize the window so that it takes up half the size of the screen by hovering the mouse over the left border of the window, clicking the border, holding down and dragging right to resize the window to half your screen size.
3. Have students SAVE their work as Practice
4. Model for students how to type the title, writer, and date for article showing them how to increase font size and bold the article title and use the Enter key.
5. Tell students the goal of the exercise which is to type the article with:
   1. Fingers on the home row keys
   2. Type the article while looking at the article and their document copy.
   3. Not to look down at the keyboard.
6. Model for students how to type the first sentence.
7. If your web browser has the ability to increase text size. Show the students how to do that too. That will make it easier to type the article text.

Here is an article for you to try from Scholastic News:)

This lesson teaches kids how to:

• Locate Microsoft Word
• Format Text
• Print their document
• Close Microsoft Word
• Spell spelling words

1. Teach the kids how to find and open Microsoft Word – there may be a shortcut on the desktop or the quicklaunch section of the task bar.
2. Begin by having kids type a spelling word
3. Have the kids format the word – Format means to change the: font, size, style (bold, italic, underline), alignment (left, center, right, justified), color
4. Have the kids hit the enter key and type in another word
   1. repeat step 3
5. Repeat step 4 as many times as you wish – type in as many words as you want the kids to remember
6. Click on the printer icon
7. Have the kids close Microsoft Word  – click on the top X
   1. When prompted to save – say  no

What did you do on your holiday vacation? This is usually a good theme to use for an essay assignment when kids return from vacation. But, how about writing a letter to someone in class, someone they visited, or someone they missed during vacation expressing their memories?

Using Letter Generator students can practice writing skills and learn the parts of a letter at the same time.

After students have brainstormed a bit, teachers and students can rollover a sample letter to learn its different parts.

Students can then write their own with step by step instructions and interactive fields to fill in each part of the letter!

Students choose a page border when finished and can even print if instructed to do so.

http://readwritethink.org/materials/letter_generator/

If you are looking to add a little higher level thinking to your math fact practice, try NASA’s math addition blast off activity. Here is the gist…

Instead of just practicing:

1+1 = 2

1+2 = 3

Try asking your kids this:

What two numbers make the sum of 11? 10? 13?

Or what three numbers make the sum of 11?

Interested? here is the link to NASA’s site – http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/games/levelthree/KC_Blast_Off.html

This link & more can be found at: the Math portion of the bTcacTus .or site.

One of the many issues surrounding technology and schools today involves keyboarding.  We have not accepted the fact that kids need to know how to keyboard just as much as they need to know how to print.  Once a child knows how to type, writing tasks will be so much more beneficial.

I use to subscribe to the keyboarding program school of thought – get a program and have the kids use it.  However, teachers need to know how to use it, it costs money – blah, blah.  So, keyboarding within the confines of the curriculum is my new mantra.  So here is a quick way to do it.

Objective: Practice keyboarding while typing in the names of characters from a story the kids’ are reading. For example, if the kids are in third grade and reading the BFG, they could type in the characters from the story, such as: BFG, Sophie, Child Chewer, etc. You get to review the characters from the story and they can practice their keyboarding.

• From your teacher web site – link to Funbrain.com’s Word Turtle – http://www.funbrain.com/detect/
  
• Choose the options I have indicated below (this is just one variation)
  • Level (select one):
    Hard (10 words, 12 letters long, with reverse and diagonal)
    Style (select one):
    Make Puzzle to Print On Paper (for yourself or friends)
• Have the kids type in their name for the title – this makes it easier for you to find who printed what
• Have the kids type in the character names – you could ask them questions and they have to type in the correct character based on the answer
• When they are all done – have them click Make Puzzle
• Print them from the File Menu of your Firefox browser

They have practiced a bit of keyboarding and you have reviewed story elements

The father of the WebQuest, Bernie Dodge, has created a tool to help get teachers to publish webquests. This tool, called the Webquest Garden uses a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing interface and takes the pain out of web publishing.

This is the first semester that I have used it. I am very impressed with what was created by my graduate students with very little input by me. Below are the results:

Graduate Student WebQuests

Google Earth is a fantastic tool to teach with. Like most things, it can be quite daunting. Here is an easy way to start.

Learning Objectives
- Locate address using the search tool
- Experiment with the Zoom tools to find items, such as: pools, roof, trees, playground etc, located near their house

Procedure:

1. Have the kids type their address into the SEARCH PANEL (make sure that you are on the Fly To tab)
   • Go over how to:
     • type a proper address
2. Click on the magnifying glass to have Google Earth find their home
3. Use the Zoom tools located on the top right to zoom in and out
4. Print what they have found if you want