Hello All,
The first week back to school from a long break can be difficult but you wouldn't know it by seeing the students in the lab. They are as energetic as ever!
Kindergartners are delving into a new software called Plants. This is very similar to the Senses program they just completed. Plants goes through a series of nine lessons and 3 different activities. They can choose the matching card, sequencing and creating a plant story. After the nine lessons are completed, they get a certificate that shows their accomplishment. The program teaches them all about plants and what it needs to survive. The students are becoming quite the gardners!This program is great for that mouse clicking and hand-eye coordination.
First Graders are getting their first introduction to the world of programming. They are using Microworld's Jr. and learning how to program a turtle. This program is a simple way to teach the logic of programming. It gives them opportunities to explore various mathematical ideas just as turning 90 degrees verses 45 degrees. In getting their turtle to move, they are actually thinking as a programmer because they are breaking down the process into manageable and logical steps which is what programmers do. I believe we have some software engineers in the making!
Second Graders are continuing to program with Alice. They have learned to have more than one character move at the same time and have added backgrounds. They have even added their own voice recordings to their characters with our new Logitech headsets. They love hearing their voices on the characters that they have created.
Third Graders have started programming with Scratch. This program was developed by MIT and it's such an ingenious way of programming. It uses a drag/drop/clicking mechanism to develop actual program code. The students have learned to add movements to their sprites by using looping logic to repeat certain moves. When students see their sprites in action, they can't believe how easy it was to code. They are now learning to add voice and a stage to their sprites.
Fourth Graders have just completed their Comic Life comic strips. They used their own personal photos from home and uploaded them into a wonderful comic strip. They had the opportunity to share using our lab Smart Board. The strips were very creative and very colorful. In this process, students learned how to upload photos into a document and then edit them as well as saving to the server.
Fifth Graders were busy with word clouds. Word clouds is an artistic way of representing commonly used words in a document. The word cloud generator used was Tagxedo and students just loved creating beautiful shapes from their word documents. Shapes included doves, squirrels, peace signs, horses, dogs and even a shoe. Ask your child which shape they liked best. For the holiday season, several students created greeting cards with their Tagxedo shapes. They were absolutely beautiful. Stop by in the lab to see the word clouds!
Typing homework is still expected each week from 3-5 Graders. Please have them turn in their weekly log signed by you.
As usual, please contact me if you have any questions.
Regards,
Rasha Sachdeva
