Beginning Graphs in MS Excel

Excel makes graphs simple and easy for beginners. Even my parent helpers are amazed at how much students can do with a simple F11 shortkey and a right click.

If the lesson plans are blurry, click on them for a full size alternative.

A Holiday Card in Publisher

Publisher cards are easy enough for second graders–even early readers. Pick a template, add a picture to personalize, add their name–and they’re done. It takes about 15 minutes. Kids always feel great about creating these greeting cards:

A Holiday Card in KidPix

Create a holiday card in KidPix and reinforce early writing skills while teaching mouse skills, toolbars and tool use:

A Holiday Story in MS Word for Grades 2-7

Reinforce fiction writing–characters, plot, setting, climax–with a short story in MS Word. Then use color, borders, pictures to enhance the words.

A Holiday Flier in Publisher

This is the only project that’s easier than Project 21 (the holiday card in Publisher). There’s no folding and the templates are bright, colorful and exciting for kids as young as second grade:

A Holiday Memory in Word or KidPix

Use this not only to create a gift for parents, but to practice writing skills, grammar, MS Word’s spell check. I have student compose the memory one week and we format it the next. For beginning writers, use KidPix and its text tools.

Big List of Student-Friendly Websites

I’ve just finished it. Tell me what you think. Add a comment with any sites I’ve left out:

Great Websites for Kids–Click here

Kindergarten through Fifth Grade

A Holiday Letter for Grades 2-6

This holiday letter can be as simple (for 2nd graders) or sophisticated (middle school) as your students can handle. There are a gamut of skills–

• text
• borders
• pictures (from the internet, from clip art, from a separate file folder on your school server)
• different fonts, font colors, font sizes

I’ve included a grading rubric to guide students in accomplishing as much as they can. Start with the basics (text, a border, some pictures) and add more skills as students get used to the early ones:

How to Excel if You’re a Beginner II

An introduction to Excel without the confusion of cells and formulas. Students collect data at home and transfer data to an Excel template at school. Be sure to complete Project 71 first, a lesson that teaches skills needed for this project.

–from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom. Preview available on Amazon.com and Scribd.com

If you can’t read this, send me an email at info@structuredlearning.net and request a pdf copy

How to Excel if You’re a Beginner–I

An introduction to Excel without the confusion of cells and formulas. Students collect data in the classroom and transfer it to an Excel template in the computer lab. Once you’ve done this one, be sure to try Project 70 and 72–both using Excel for classroom learning.

–from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom. Preview available on Amazon.com and Scribd.com

If you can’t read this, send me an email at info@structuredlearning.net and request a pdf copy

20 Great Research Websites for Kids

Quick, safe spots to send your students for research:

1. All-around research site libraryspot.com
2. Dictionary www.dictionary.com
3. Edutainment site—requires subscription www.brainpop.com/
4. General info research www.infoplease.com/yearbyyear.html
5. Internet research sites for kids http://ivyjoy.com/rayne/kidssearch.html
6. Kids search engine for the internet kids.yahoo.com
7. Math, reading, arcade edutainment www.funbrain.com
8. National Geographic for kids kids.nationalgeographic.com/
9. Nova video programs www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs.html
10. Research for kids www.factmonster.com/
11. Research—by grade level www.iknowthat.com/com/L3?Area=LabelMaps
12. Research—chapters on subjects http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/
13. Videos on so many topics www.woopid.com/
14. Research—for kids libraryspot.com/
15. Research—history www.infoplease.com/yearbyyear.html
16. School Tube—learning videos from YouTube. Organized by topics http://sqooltube.com/
17. Science headlines—audio science.nasa.gov/headlines
18. Search the internet www.google.com
19. Thesaurus—a great one www.thesaurus.com
20. World Book Online (subscription required) www.worldbookonline.com/kids

 

10 Great Virtual Field Trips

Schools and kids love field trips, but they take a lot of time, money and extra adult supervision that may or may not be available. Thanks to the internet, there are now alternatives that are only as far away as your technology lab.

Here are some of the best available across the wild web of the internet:

• Smithsonian Museum

• Forest Life

• The Moon via Google Earth

• Mars via Google Earth

• Planet in Action via Google Earth

• Ellis Island

• Eternal Egypt

• A Collection of Virtual Field Trips

To:

• science museums
• farms
• Blackwell’s Best Virtual Field Trips
• strife-torn countries
• factories
• more

Want a quick tour right now, via YouTube. This is Mars, complements of Google Earth:

Only have a few minutes? Try one of these Learnz Virtual Field Trips via YouTube:

 

20 Websites to Learn Everything About the Human Body

If your second grader has to write a report about the human body, try these websites:

1. Blood Flow
2. Body Systems
3. Build a Skeleton
4. Enchanted Learning—the body
5. Find My Body Parts
6. How the Body Works
7. Human Anatomy Online
8. Human Body websites
9. Human Body—by a 2^nd grade class—video
10. Human Body—videos on how body parts work
11. Inside the Human Body: The Respiratory System
12. Kid’s Biology
13. Kid’s Library page
14. Kids Konnect
15. Matching Senses
16. More Human Body sites
17. The Human Body
18. The Human Body
19. Virtual Body
20. Weird stuff your body does
    

How to Teach Internet Basics to Kids

Lesson Description

• Federal, state and local governments have spent millions of dollars to connect students to the Internet. By 2005, 94% of public school classrooms had internet access. Hopes are high that Internet use will change the process of education and enhance student learning.
• The internet offers a multitude of freeware to enthuse students about a myriad of educational subjects. The days of purchased software on a budget are gone. If you know what to do.
• Throughout this workbook, we’ve listed dozens of free websites on common academic subjects. In this lesson, we’ll talk about internet basics: How to access those confusing web addresses and links.

Computer Activity

• Start with the basics. Starfall.com is a good site for introducing the internet because it’s easy to maneuver through and quick to enter into the address bar. Type it in for younger students (most kindergartners can’t read all of those letters and dots), but let first and second graders do it themselves—even if it takes a while. They will learn from the mistakes—no spaces in the address, a dot is a period, and so on. Have them save the site to ‘favorites’. Next time, they can open from the bookmark rather than typing (Find the gold star for ‘Starfall’)
• As they master these first steps, add the back arrow, links, icon pictures.
• When the website is interesting enough, students will challenge themselves to work through it. Remind them they’re explorers—like Christopher Columbus or Star Trek—trying new things, going into the unknown, not giving up. Explain this concept to them.
• Remind them the machine won’t break. Have plenty of help the first months so students don’t get frustrated, hands up forever, bored.
• As they have problems, challenge them to solve them. Ask questions about the problem. What has solved similar problems? When you make a suggestion, have them do it. You’re a guide, not a servant. Remind parent helpers to adopt this attitude. There will be a day students move beyond the classroom, and then it’s just them—problem-solvers or victims.
• Here are some websites that never fail to intrigue even the youngest learner:

Games that make you think

Games to teach mouse skills, problem-solving skills

Dr. Seuss

Stories for children

A must at the Holiday—shows children where Santa is and what he’s doing

The Magic Schoolbus

Clifford

Learning that sticks—Game Goo

See the Appendix in 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom for a full list, ordered by grade and topic.

Extensions

• Visit Welcome to the Web

Troubleshooting Tips

• This is hard. (Have enough helpers, and then guide the students to a solution. They’ll be proud of themselves when they can solve the problem alone. And that happens fast—just a couple of weeks!)

How to Explain Computers In K-5

The good news is, there are great websites that do this, and they’re free. Try these:

Match the parts

Audio, good for kindergarten

Explains parts; 2nd grade and up

For 3-5 grades; review in class and then take the quiz

If you teach K-5 like I do, start with the games at the top and move on to the quiz. These terms and an understanding of the parts is important as they progress through tech classes.

4 Ways to Explore the Universe From Your Computer

There are three great methods that you may not know about–all Free and ready-to-use in classroom inquiry into our Universe:

Celestia

This is a free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy to a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that’s not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects.

Google Sky

Google teamed up with astronomers at some of the largest observatories in the world to bring you a new view of the sky. This tool provides an exciting way to browse and explore the universe. You can find the positions of the planets and constellations on the sky and even watching the birth of distant galaxies as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. You can view it online or as a free download with Google Earth.

Google Moon

Developed in conjunction with NASA and JAXA, you can view take tours of landing sites, narrated by Apollo astronaut,  view 3D models of landed spacecraft, zoom into 360-degree photos to see astronauts’ footprints, and watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions. You can also access Google Moon via Google Earth with a download

Google Mars

Internet-based exploration of Mars. In collaboration with NASA researchers at Arizona State University, Google created some of the most detailed scientific maps of Mars ever made. You can view regions of Mars, spacecraft, Mars stories. You can also view Mars via Google Earth with a quick download.

3 Projects to Teach ‘Who Am I?’

Grade Level: 2-4, depending upon their familiarity with computers

Background: None. These are all starters

Vocabulary: avatar, internet security, wiki (i.e., wikipedia), internet address, link

Time: About 15 minutes for each.

Create an Avatar

Purpose: Provides an opportunity for you to discuss with students the importance of internet security, privacy, keeping all personal information to themselves. Explain what an ‘avatar’ is–a comic image of their true self.

Extension: If your students are creating a page on a class wiki, this is a great image to add at the start

After you discuss the purpose of avatars, go to Face Your Manga. Demo the project first and then set the students free. Some students will finish in class. The rest can do it at home. Explain this to them. The idea that they can access school sites from home is oh so confusing to new computer geeks.

Create a Logo

Purpose: Discuss the purpose of family crests and official seals and their make-up (each part means something).

Extension: Like the avatar above, if your students are creating a page on a class wiki, this is a great image to add

After discussing the importance of the pieces in seals and crests, go to Says it.  Demo the project first and then let students make theirs. As above, some will finish in class, the rest at home.

What do You Look Like

Purpose: Students love drawing pictures of themselves. This can be integrated into any unit on that theme. It can also be used to draw themselves as a pioneer, a Roman warrior, a scientist–any individual to understand what characteristics go into people as they are or were.

Extension: This image can be added to the wiki student page with a discussion of what each characteristic means.

Software: Use Paint (free with Windows), KidPix or Tux Paint (free download) for youngers, Photoshop for olders

Demo the project first and then let students make theirs. As above, some will finish in class, the rest at home.

Drawn in Tux Paint

For older students, use Adobe Photoshop:

Four Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills

It sounds easy, but to a five or six year old, holding the mouse, clicking that left button, dragging and dropping while holding a finger down is darn difficult. I found four programs that will make it painless:

Mousing Around–learn clicks, multiple clicks. Don’t be surprised when the kids start shouting out animal names.

Bees and Honey–shorter, but concentrates on clicks and dragging-dropping

Tidy the classroom while learning clicks, double-clicks (difficult for youngers) and drag-and-drop

Mouse Program–for olders who can read, but a thorough exercise of the mouse skills

Is Handwriting Like Camera Film–So Last Generation

Studies show one in three children struggle with handwriting. I’d guess more, seeing it first hand as a teacher. Sound bad? Consider another study shows that one in five parents say they last penned a letter more than a year ago.

Let’s look at the facts. Students handwrite badly, and don’t use it much when they grow up (think about yourself. How often do you write a long hand letter?). Really, why is handwriting important in this day of keyboards, PDAs, smart phones, spellcheck, word processing? I start students on MS Word in second grade, about the same time their teacher is beginning cursive. Teach kids the rudiments and turn them over to the tech teacher for keyboarding.

I searched for reasons why I was wrong. Here’s what I found:

• 1 in 10 Americans are endangered by the poor handwriting of physicians.
• citizens miss out on $95,000,000 in tax refunds because the taxman can’t read their handwriting
• Poor handwriting costs businesses $200,000,000 in time and money that result in confused and inefficient employees, phone calls made to wrong numbers, and letters delivered to incorrect addresses.

Read on:

Schools: Less cursive, more keyboarding

BROWNSBURG, Ind., Aug. 28 (UPI) —

Officials in an Indiana school district said cursive writing lessons will be scaled down this year in favor of computer keyboarding.

Two Internet Activites For the First Day of Class

In a Web 2.0 classroom, technology is integrated with what is being taught, but a few weeks are necessary to cover transcendental computer skills–where students sit, how to care for the computer, keyboard practice. These activities get students comfortable with the school computers and the every week routine.

Here are two great programs to add to that list (if you don’t have a list, let me know. I’ll add one under ‘comments’). I use these to organize the student-centered wiki (each student creates a page in the grade level wiki I’ve set up) and impress on my students the importance of privacy on the internet.

Says-it

Students create an official seal, a sign, a poster for their wiki, to personalize their page. that done, they learn to upload it and insert it into a wiki. Wikis, for those who haven’t tried them, are like webpages, but edited and formatted by the members. Members are limited to those invited to join. In the case of my class wikis, that’s the students, and each student gets one page to decorate. It can look as elegant or simple as they choose, and the Says-it activity starts it out.

Face your Manga

Students create an avatar that will be their face on the internet. It gives me an opening to discuss safety on the internet, privacy policies, and school rules that ensure student internet time is secure. I have them email it home to spark discussions with their parents. Then, they forward the picture to me (this activity teaches them to forward emails) for use in class. I have them put the avatar on their wiki page so they’ll be reminded each time they visit.

From here, we are ready to start integrating tech skills into class activities. The wiki provides the foundation and these two programs personalize it as students love doing.