Birthdays of the month, tally marks n' Excel graphs- 2nd-4th Grade

As a mini-checkpoint assessment for Excel, the Second-Fourth Graders collected data using tally marks, converted the tally marks to numbers, layed out the data on an Excel spreadsheet and created a bar graph.  The data that we collected was a count of birthdays for each month of our classmates and family members.  I kept track of the count using tally marks on the white board as the students dug deep into their minds to remember when their classmates' and family members' birthdays were.  Once all of the data was collected, the students took turns converting the tally marks to numbers.  Then, with very little help from me, they were instructed create the spreadsheet and graph.  There were a handful of students who remembered all of the steps, and they proudly reminded the others who had forgotten.  It was a triumph for those who remembered and a good review for those who forgot!

Thankful for- 2nd-4th Grade

The Second-Fourth Graders are working on a simple MS Word document to help them reflect on for what they are thankful.  The document begins with "I am thankful for:" and it continues with a list of things that the students feel blessed for having in their lives.  They reviewed how to insert bullets and how to "define a new bullet" using a picture or symbol.  They also reviewed how to insert clipart,  format clipart text-wrapping, and change the font.

Sympathy Word Clouds- 3rd &4th Grade

The Third and Fourth Graders created sympathy word clouds using tagxedo.com for their teacher, Mrs. Paulsen. Mrs. Paulsen's father passed away on Friday. With the help of Pastor Wagner, the students listed words, phrases and Biblical verses that pertain to going home to heaven, and then they used the words to create the word clouds. The kids saved their work on the server, I printed the word clouds using a color printer, and we worked together to create a collage of the word clouds on a poster. Here is some of their work!

Scripture Poster- 3rd & 4th Grade

The students Googled "popular Bible verses" to find their favorite verse. They copied and pasted the verse to a Word document.  Then the students Googled images that were relevant to their verse by typing in the book, chaper and verse number in the search bar. This assignment was a review of many skills including using search engines and Word tools such as copy/paste, aligment, image boarder, image text wrapping, image resizing, and footer/header.

Favorite Ice Cream- 3rd & 4th Grade

The Third and Fourth Graders created a spreadsheet and graph using "favorite ice cream flavors" as their topic.  They learned some new skills including hiding rows in an Excel spreadsheet and using the "PrtScn" key to copy & paste an image of the screen to Paint.  Below are the images that they generated using the PrtScn key.

Word Cloud-5th & 6th Grade

The Fifth and Sixth Graders created word clouds using Tagxedo.  The kids learned that if they wrote a word mulitple times, the word would appear larger than the other words in the final image.  They also learned to use the swiggly line ~ between two words that go together such as "First~Last name."  The kids downloaded and printed their word clouds.  Their work will be on display for the parent/teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday!

Animal Homes- 2nd Grade

The Second Graders are working on PowerPoint slide shows about animal homes. Each slide features a unique animal with one simple sentence that states the kind of home that the animal lives in and an image of the home. For example, the first slide was for bats: "Bats live in caves." Emphasis is placed on capitalization, grammar and punctuation. The computing skills for this assignment includes: launch PowerPoint, insert a slide, select a layout, insert an image (clipart or from file), produce symbols and punctuation with the shift key, and use font tools. Additional skills that will be reintroduced later include using slide design and slide transistions.