Week 1 - Welcome Back!

It's important to start the year off right. So after a quick "welcome back," we talked about some of the changes to the lab, some of the procedures we will follow, and some of the rules we need to obey.

One of the most important rules is "KEEP SMILING." First, the smile emoticon is used to indicate class behavior and we want to encourage everyone to keep it on the smile...as opposed to this guy >>>  :-(

But more importantly, "KEEP SMILING" is a reminder that computers should be exciting and fun. And although they may be difficult and frustrating at times, we need to stay positive and never let the computer get us upset. Remember, it's just a machine.

Week 34 - Home Keys - F and J

There's no place like home! Especially when it comes to typing. This week, I introduced the first graders to the home keys and the concept of touch typing. We learned about all of the home keys, but paid particular attention to the F and J keys. The students went to typingclub.com to practice. We'll use this great website a lot over the next few weeks. Practice at home is also a good idea. And it's much better than playing video games and watching TV!

Weeks 31 through 33 - Introduction to Typing

Yarn. It may not be the most technologically advanced tool, but it sure is helpful when it comes to typing. We placed a small strand of yarn down the center of our keyboards to help us keep our left hands on the left side and our right hands on the right side. We kept the yarn there the past few weeks as we typed our high-frequency and spelling words. We even used it while playing a few typing games. We're already seeing improvement! Hey, this typing with two hands thing isn't so tough. Especially when you have yarn.

Weeks 29 and 30 - Zoodles

Most kids love animals. And most kids love to doodle. Put them together and you've got a ZOODLE! Students went to the San Diego Zoo's website to create their own zoodle. I encouraged them to be creative…think of fun ways to color their animal. In the second week of this project, the students typed a brief description of their zoodle. I've gotta say…if the Baker first graders ever open a zoo with these animals, I'll be the first in line to see them in person!

Weeks 26 through 28 - All About Me

Our first graders like to eat eggplant parmesan, pizza, and cake. They want to be football players, princesses, and doctors when they grow up. And their favorite colors span the color spectrum. We learned all of this in our "All About Me" project. They developed several pages of information about themselves by completing sentences and inserting pictures. Think of it as early drafts of their memoirs when they become famous athletes, royalty, and brain surgeons. Fun stuff!

Week 25 - No class (PARCC testing + snow)

Due to a combination of PARCC testing and snow days, there were no computer classes this week. We'll catch up next week!

Week 24 - Clip Art or Pictures

   

When you create a document, sometimes you have a picture you want to use. But sometimes you don't have any pictures and you need to use clip art. This week, the first graders practiced placing both types of images into their documents. I gave them a series of words and they had to determine if we had a picture for each word, or if we needed to find clip art instead. Can you tell which of the above examples is a photo I gave the kids and which is clip art? (Here's a hint...there is no way I'd ever get that close to a shark to take a photo. Did that help?)