Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!

I can't believe it's already (almost) Thanksgiving!  I've been trying to cram as much as I possible into this week because I won't see the students again until December!

The 1st graders are taking a break from math practice and are getting creative on the computer!  This week we are making art with Doozla, an easy to use drawing program designed specifically for kids.  It allows students to use a variety of simple tools to create fun art on screen.  In addition to their pictures, the 1st graders wrote a sentence about their work, doing their best to use their typing skills outside of a typing program!

2nd grade continued to work on our MS Word formatting activity, and 3rd graders have been having a great time working with our 30 day free trial of Type To Learn 4.  Each student has their own account, which enables them to work at their own pace on the lesson and games for each level.  If we end up adopting this program school-wide, students will also be able to access their accounts from home!

In addition to their ongoing work familiarizing themselves with their LAUSD online student accounts, the 4th and 5th graders were given their first real PowerPoint project this week: Unsolved Mysteries.  Each student will choose a "mystery" to research -- I have given them a list -- and will create a presentation based on what they find.  This should be a lot of fun, and will really allow them to become comfortable using the many features of PowerPoint.  (Although they may do research at home, they will be given time to research in class.)

I'm getting excited about Computer Science Education Week -- December 9th-15th -- and have already pledged to participate in the Hour of Code with our students!  More details soon.  :-)



Happy Thanksgiving!