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!! :)