ABC's of Computer Lab

A great way to introduce terms for computer lab is through the ABCs. Choose one letter each week to teach. This could be done as an introductory lesson for the first 10 or so minutes of class or it can be used as the entire lesson for the day. Here is a list of terms you can use for each letter!!

A: Address bar

B: blog

C: computer

D: desktop

E: E-mail

F: flash drive

G: Google

H: Hard Drive

I: Icon

J: Jpeg

K: keyboard

L: log in

M: monitor

N: network

O: Output Device

P: printer

Q: queue

R: right click

S: scanner

T: toolbar

U: USB port

V: virus

W: webcam

X: windows XP

Y: YouTube

Z: Zip Drive

Get creative on how to display them! It is a great tool to use though! :) I put mine over the smartboard. (Please do not judge my bare walls. I was in the early stages of decorating! :) )

It's the final countdown

Greetings! I know the year is winding down and I hope that you all are staying well rested to finish out the year strong! As I make decisions about next year and transition into new beginnings I take a look back at all that I have learned and accomplished this year as a computer teacher.

I began the year not having any clue about how to teach computer (especially to Kindergarteners!). I was given my state standards and a classroom with 30 computers and was told "good luck". This was my first year to be in a classroom by myself with no mentor to guide me through and I must say it was a learning year indeed. What I thought would be my classroom management plan quickly failed and a new one quickly took place. I learned the reality of being a classroom teacher - some lessons will go great and others will completely fail. The great thing about being a resource teacher is that I was able to teach the same lesson 8 or 9 times so by the end I had worked out all of the kinks and had turned a "fail" lesson into a success. At the beginning of the year it took me a few times to teach the lesson before I called it a "success" but as the year has progressed I have learned how to anticipate the issues before they arise allowing my lesson to be a "success" the first time I teach it.

I have learned a lot about technology, how to introduce it to students, how to break down each concept into simple steps and terminology, and most importantly, I have learned unique and fun ways to incorporate technology into lessons being taught in the classroom. This year I was able to collaborate with teachers to find out what they were studying and what events would be taking place in their classroom and then incorporate some sort of technology activity to assist what they were learning.

For example, second grade was learning how to write friendly letters so we went over the steps again in computer, the students completed a graphic organizer, and then learned how to type one on the computer and add different components to make the letters more appealing. We did this around the time of our school wide grandparents day lunch so that we could write the letter to our grandparents, print them and give it to them at the lunch.

I had a fantastic year and learned so much! I am so excited to see where God will place me next year and what new experiences I will encounter. I look forward to learning new things from new people and sharing all that I have to offer.

God bless and good luck to all of my teacher friends finishing out the year!

Ms. V

The Control Tree

One of my favorite classroom decorations this year has been my 3-D Control Tree. This was an idea I got from another blogger and LOVED!! I have had it up all year but I am just now teaching the control key shortcuts.

I had my students research about different animals and bugs from National Geographic online magazines and then type three facts that they learned. With this word document, I then explained to them how there are things on our tool bar that we can use by typing a shortcut. I asked them to complete a few commands (ctrl + a, ctrl + b, etc.). They were amazed at what it did and then were a little disappointed I didn't teach it to them at the beginning of the year. :)

Here is a picture of it!



Testing decor

In honor of State wide testing coming up,  I wanted to share with you some fun posters and decorations that I created to hang up in our school. These are easy to do and I had all of the supplies already at school. This helped get the students excited about testing. We also gave them a little treat each day as a reward for doing their best. Here are some ideas.

 

Some incentives to hand out after each day's test. We taped a little phrase on each one.

 

Monday: Smarties - "You are such a smartie!"

Tuesday: Nerds - "Be a nerd and pass the test!"

Wednesday: Pencil - "We think you are sharp"

Thursday: Starburst - "We think you are a star!"

Friday: Bouncy ball - "You have finished your tests! Go have a ball!"

I hope this inspires you to make your students feel excited and relaxed when it comes test time. Leave comments for any other ideas you have!!!

Writing a Friendly Letter

Our school hosts a "Grandperson Day" luncheon every year and this year I thought it would be fun for the kids to write their grandperson a letter so they could give it to them at lunch that day. For Kindergarten and 2nd grade this took us two weeks to complete and for 1st grade it took 3 weeks to complete each part.

I started out this lesson by teaching about the 5 different parts to a friendly letter. For first and second grade, I modeled how to write a friendly letter and then I gave the students a graphic organizer to complete first so they could get all of their thoughts down on paper. Once they finished thinking of what to write, I had them type their letter in Microsoft Word. I taught them how to add a border, change the font style and size, and add clip art. Once they were finished we talked about Print Preview and Print and the students were able to print their letter to take with them. Below is an example of the graphic organizer and letter they created.

My "Parts of a Friendly Letter" poster.

1st and 2nd grade Graphic Organizer

1st and 2nd grade example

For Kindergarten I did something similar but modified the text. They all wrote to same thing on their letter. "Happy Grandparents Day! I love you so much. Love, (insert name here)"
This made it easier for the students to type. I walked them through the steps on adding a border, changing the size and style of the text, and adding a shape to their letter. Once they printed their letter, I allowed them to color in their heart to add their personal touch. :) They turned out precious! Here is one before they were colored.

This lesson was a great way to incorporate lots of skills into a fun activity. The students favorite part was that it allowed them to take their work home and share it with their family.

Bulletin Boards

Here is a little secret about me...I LOVE bulletin boards. I love coming up with creative phrases and getting to use my creative gene to create something fun and vibrant. Since this is my first year teaching computer, I struggled with coming up with creative ideas of what to put on my bulletin board. I wanted them to all relate to computer lab in some way but there weren't many ideas on Pinterest or other blogs so here is what I came up with some on my own. I wanted to share them so that all of you other computer teachers will have other ideas! Leave comments if you have any other ideas!

For August/September here is what I did.

October's bulletin board was "On the road to computer knowledge". Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of that one. I created a road and drew a bus and then I put signs along the road that said "Word", "Excel", "Powerpoint", "Internet Safety", etc.

November was all about what we are thankful for. The first time I attempted wordles was with my second graders. They were featured on the November bulletin board. I love doing wordles with my students. It helps them learn the importance of words and it helps them express themselves. They did a fantastic job coming up with words they are thankful for. Here is the bulletin board and then a close up of two of them.

I did wordles again for December/January but this time I let my studnets make one collaborative wordle, one for each grade. This time instead of using Wordle I used Tagxedo which is the same thing except it puts the words in a shape. This worked really well for Kindergarten and 1st grade because they were still learning about the computers and how to type. I had each class brainstorm words they think of when they hear "winter" and I compiled the lists throughout the week. I also had them vote on which shape they liked the best. By the end of the week I complied their lists and chose the shape that had the most votes. Here is how they turned out!

This is probably one of my favorites that we did!!

In February we focused on the 2014 Winter Olympics. My previous blog posts goes into depth of all the cool things we did for the Olympics but here is the bulletin board I created!

I also had my Kindergarteners create a wordle as a class. Each class got to add words they thought of when they heard "Olympics". Since this was the first Olympics they would remember, we had a lesson prior to this all about the Olympics. Once they came up with lots of "Olympic' words, they voted on a shape and color scheme. I printed them out and hung them around the bulletin board. This is an example of one class's wordle.

March was Dr. Seuss month! I struggled with this one for a while because many of the teachers in our school had already chosen which Dr. Seuss book they were going to use to design their bulletin board around. I also wanted it to have something about computer lab in it. So after lots of think time I had an AH-HA moment! Here is what I decided on!

We had been talking about how we can use our arrows when we are typing in Microsoft Word to help us get to something that may need to be deleted or get to a place where we need to type an additional thing in without deleting everything we had already typed. So I came up with that quote and in place of the words "left", "right", "low",  and "high", I used arrows. My Dr. Seuss characters turned out quite hilarious but everyone knew what they were suppose to be.

I also love decorating my door but i can't cover the whole thing because of my air vent so here is what I did! I loved it!

For April my creativity was shot so it doesn't have to do with computer lab but i love the way the flowers turned out! Some of the students read it "Into Spring Learning" so next time I will change up the placement of words.

I have not decided what May will be so if you have ideas post you comment below and let me know!! :)

A New Endeavor

Fellow teachers, crafters, bloggers and all who have discovered this blog, WELCOME!!! I have had a lot of success sharing my ideas for teaching through Pinterest so I have decided to create a blog to help share these ideas easier!!

I am a Computer Lab teacher for a K-2 school and I love it!  I have learned so much this year. People think I am crazy for teaching my K-2 students Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint and other things but they have completed every assignment successfully and have blown me away with their ability!!!! I hope you enjoy my blog and I hope that my resources can be of use to you!! So follow my blog and comment with feedback!! :)


The biggest interest so far has been the activities I completed with my students during the Olympics! This was an idea that a fellow teacher and I thought up and it became so much more than we ever dreamed!!! We got the whole school involved, learned about the different countries represented by the students in our school, we had an opening ceremony where the students passed the torch around the gym and then lit the big torch. We combined the closing ceremony with our Multicultural day. Parents came in and presented on their country and the students got to be hands on in certain stations. It was a HUGE success.Here are activities that I did with my students:

• We learned about the Olympics through a PowerPoint I created.
• We played a Jeopardy game which the students LOVED.
• The kids created wordles using "Tagxedo" and put them in the shape of different countries or continents that had participants in the Olympics. My stem was, "What are words that you think of when I say 'Olympics'." (Here is an example of one)

Here is my bulletin board for the unit!

Here is a picture of our "torches" and our giant torch from the Opening Celebration. The torches are made from flashlights, tissue paper taped around the edge, and aluminum foil wrapped around the bottom. 

I also had the students tally mark the awards that the countries received as the Olympics we taking place. They LOVED this!!

What a success this unit was. I had a blast and so did the kids!