I had great intentions before Christmas Vacation. I was going to have the kids reflect on December learning. I was going to have them think about what was the most memorable for them. I was even going to have them write about it in their writer's notebook. I never did any of those! time always gets away from us during those last few days.
I was a bit worried about what kind of writing we'd get today because they've been "removed" from December and school for several weeks. Second graders tend to focus on the here and now. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. We didn't even have time to do any prewriting (just prethinking). So I have everyone sit and think about 10 minutes before we went to lab about what they planned to write in their December timeline. 13 (out of 16 present today) kids raised their hands and said they already knew what they wanted to write about. Wow. The other three said they'd think about it on the walk down. I know, that's not really the best prewriting strategy, but each month, they have approached the writing in a different way, so I was interested to see what they'd produce.
Most chose to write about our last days of school: Polar Express day-complete with PJ's and hot cocoa, some wrote about frosting gingerbread cookies to go along with what they learned about Germany. Several wrote about our country tasting party. And some I didn't even get to check in with.
What I noticed today was kids are very intimidated by the squiggly read lines under their words. Now that they know what it means, they want EVERY word to be spelled correctly and they are constantly raising their hands to ask how to spell this or that. I've already had the discussion that they should look closer at the word and see if they can try spelling it a different way, then try it out and move on. They are not happy with that answer! I intend to do a lesson during lab time next week more specifically on misspelled words on the computer. The other issue I ran into today was the week before vacation, I taught them how to change their font size (because of a project we were doing), font, and color. Now they all had to play with that with their timeline, which I don't mind, but I had to keep reminding them to focus on their writing first, then play with the fonts after. It made me think of how we work as adults. I know sometimes, I like to play around with the font before I create something so I can see what it will look like while I work on it. As the newness wears off, this may not be such a distraction for them.
As far as technological problems, the computers were running very slowly. Again this doesn't seem to be an issue with my kids yet as they are not able to type very fast. The other problem was that most of them forget they needed to save to their folder before they could type. This was their failure to listen to me when I refreshed their memories using the DLP to model the process again.
Today I was happy when:
Kids wrote the while time, they were curious about spelling, they kept their index fingers on f and j (not all of them, but many!), they used one space between words instead of 12!, they used punctuation at the end of their sentences, some even used internal punctuation (Ana used parentheses correctly)!! Overall, it was a good day in the computer lab.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Kids Comments
As the month of December progressed, I overheard many kids commenting, "I'm going to write about his for my timeline!" I love that they are thinking about the timeline as they work!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Thursday Lesson/December 16th
Many students have been asking how to make letters upper case and how to insert punctuation and how to make the words bigger. Today's lesson was surrounding these topics. Each student had to log in and open Open Office, our word processor. After that, they had to write their name and 5 spelling words they know by heart. We discussed they'd know if they know them by heart if the red squiggly line is there or not.
They immediately saw their name had the squiggly line. I showed them two ways to "fix" the first letter of their name: clicking the mouse after the first letter and hitting delete or highlighting the first letter (trickier as one letter is difficult for them to highlight). Then they learned how to hit the shift and the first letter at the same time. Many kids are always afraid to hold the shift button down. They do it so quickly, like the keys will bite them! I notice this every single year! So, I showed them to hold the shift down and keep their finger on it, then touch their first letter of their name. Success. We talked about how it's much easier to create your uppercase letters as you type. They entered to the next line and we practiced their name with uppercase at the beginning. they got it!
For font changes, I showed them how to highlight the word they wanted to change, then we played around with fonts and sizes. They enjoyed doing this and many were giggling as they used some crazy fonts and made their words huge and then tiny!
Today I was able to teach them the period and the exclamation mark. The period was easy for most after they found the key. I had to go around and show most of them on their keyboard as I wasn't explaining it very well-a visual on the projector would have been nice here. I will consider this for the next punctuation marks. The exclamation mark was more difficult as they had to control the shift as well as the key. I am also teaching them correct hand form on the keyboard and they are making a conscious effort to have their first fingers on "J' and "F". It's quite impressive to watch.
While this whole lesson may sound so simplistic, it's another step in the digital writing process for young learners. At first I wasn't sure it would be OK to combine the all these components into one lesson, but it worked out well and I saw quickly that we'd only be working on periods and exclamation marks. We'll cover the others another day.
My hope is for next week (the 3 day week before vacation) to have the kids write in their writers notebook their thoughts for their December entry so when we get back in January, it's ready to go.
They immediately saw their name had the squiggly line. I showed them two ways to "fix" the first letter of their name: clicking the mouse after the first letter and hitting delete or highlighting the first letter (trickier as one letter is difficult for them to highlight). Then they learned how to hit the shift and the first letter at the same time. Many kids are always afraid to hold the shift button down. They do it so quickly, like the keys will bite them! I notice this every single year! So, I showed them to hold the shift down and keep their finger on it, then touch their first letter of their name. Success. We talked about how it's much easier to create your uppercase letters as you type. They entered to the next line and we practiced their name with uppercase at the beginning. they got it!
For font changes, I showed them how to highlight the word they wanted to change, then we played around with fonts and sizes. They enjoyed doing this and many were giggling as they used some crazy fonts and made their words huge and then tiny!
Today I was able to teach them the period and the exclamation mark. The period was easy for most after they found the key. I had to go around and show most of them on their keyboard as I wasn't explaining it very well-a visual on the projector would have been nice here. I will consider this for the next punctuation marks. The exclamation mark was more difficult as they had to control the shift as well as the key. I am also teaching them correct hand form on the keyboard and they are making a conscious effort to have their first fingers on "J' and "F". It's quite impressive to watch.
While this whole lesson may sound so simplistic, it's another step in the digital writing process for young learners. At first I wasn't sure it would be OK to combine the all these components into one lesson, but it worked out well and I saw quickly that we'd only be working on periods and exclamation marks. We'll cover the others another day.
My hope is for next week (the 3 day week before vacation) to have the kids write in their writers notebook their thoughts for their December entry so when we get back in January, it's ready to go.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
November Timeline
Making the daily "happenings" in our classroom visible made November timeline writing much easier than in past months. After we added to our chart each day (note to self-post picture of chart) we had two charts full of daily learning. I then typed them onto a bulleted document and the kids were able to choose what they wanted to elaborate on. This was by far the easiest month yet! The kids were happy to have a large list to "choose" from as they were concerned last month that they couldn't remember everything they had learned. Once they chose their topic they wrote in the classroom on paper (this is the first time I've had them compose on paper before going to the lab). The next day, we went to the lab and they were so excited to be able to use the clipboards that they have wanted to use since school began! (note to me-take pictures of kids in lab). 14 out of 17 students were able to do their whole November timeline writing during lab time and the other three finished up the next day in the classroom. I haven't asked them yet which process they liked best: composing on computer, thought on sticky note or writing their whole thought on paper before lab. I will be sure to get their feedback.
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