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:)