Always Have a “Plan B”

More and more I rely on the Internet and the resources that can be found there but that can sometimes be a problem when the Internet isn’t available for some reason. This week is World Math Day and so I had planned to practice on the site with three of my classes today. You’ll notice that says planned – when I got to school today I was told that the Internet wasn’t available. Okay, we sometimes have problems that just require a reset of some things but that wasn’t the case today. Today, there just was no access from the cable. I’m still not sure what was wrong and hope it’s fixed tomorrow but I’ll have a Plan B ready just in case it’s not!

So what were my plans and what did we actually end up doing?

2nd Grade:

The Plan was to have them log in to the World Math Day site and customize their avatar and play the game so they knew how it worked. I don’t see 2nd Grade on Tuesday or Wednesday (the actual World Math Day) so I wanted to get them excited about using the site so they could play at home. Plan B was Jumpstart 2nd Grade! We don’t have the latest and greatest version of this game (and couldn’t install it if we did because of disk space issues) but even the older versions have good grade level activities and the students love it. I did send home the letter I had crafted at home that said we tried out the World Math Day site and encouraged parents to have their child participate in World Math Day from home. I just added a hand written note that we didn’t actually get to have our practice due to Internet issues. Note to self: Don’t just email these things to yourself, put them on a flash drive you bring in too!

3rd Grade:

The Plan for most of the 3rd Graders was the same as 2nd Grade – we were going to try out the World Math Day site. I also don’t see 3rd Grade on Tuesday or Wednesday so this was going to be the day that I could show them how this worked so they could actually participate from home. I did send home the letter but we didn’t get to practice. Plan B was installing the software program, Jumpstart 3rd Grade, and working in that – most of them anyway. A few were finishing up something in Microsoft Word. They’ve been asking about using this all year so this gave me the chance to get it installed and to review how to handle CDs and install software with them.

6th Grade:

The Plan for 6th Grade didn’t involve World Math Day – whew, right? Well, yes and no, 6th Grade was going to continue their Keyboarding Lessons. These typically start with a 2-minute timed test and guess where those are? If you said, on the Internet, you win! Luckily I had brought a timer to the lab a week or so ago so Plan B was to create my own timed test. The students typed the alphabet as many times in Microsoft Word as they could during a 2 minute period. Then they examined what they typed for errors and counted how many of those they had. They then used the Word Count function in Word to see how many characters they had typed. They subtracted their errors from that and then divided by 5 to get the number of words they had typed – typing programs typically count a word as 5 characters. Then, they divided that result by 2 to get the number of words they had typed in one minute. Yes, they could have divided by 10 but I wanted them to see the steps and to know that 5 typed characters equals one word. They really enjoyed typing the alphabet for their speed test! Each Keyboarding Class ends with 10 minutes of some keyboarding game that is typically on the Internet. Instead of going to the Internet, they spent their game time playing the games in Mavis Beacon instead.

4th Grade:

The Plan for 4th Grade was again World Math Day since I don’t see 4th Grade on Tuesday or Wednesday. So, on to Plan B, and like 6th Grade, 4th Grade continued their Keyboarding lessons. I had to make the same modifications to the Keyboarding lesson that we usually do but all went smoothly and they enjoyed the games in Mavis Beacon. I also sent home my letter about World Math Day along with their logins and they were excited to play at home to try to help set a new world record. I hope they’re able to do so.

And, now I’m working on my Plan B for the rest of the week … just in case. There’s a current discussion on the Elementary Tech Teachers Ning about what to do when the Internet is down. If you are technology teacher in Elementary School (or even Middle School), this is a great Ning with loads of ideas and help. Join it!

So, what do you do in the computer lab when the Internet is down?

March 2, 2009 Lesson Plans, Reflections 1 Comment on Always Have a “Plan B”

With March Comes Spring

… and the end of the Winter Wonderland project though I still have some completed activities to share. Some of the participants are asking if we have anything planned for spring. At this point there isn’t anything organized for spring (at least nothing I am involved with or know about) but there are lots of ideas out there on the Internet so I thought I’d blog about a few and challenge any participants from the Winter Wonderland project to comment on this post and add their own ideas and/or to pick some of these or adapt them for their classes and to share them on their own blog, wiki or web site.

JenuineTech.com’s St. Patrick’s Day 2009
A 3-Day Project for Preschool-3rd Grade Students. Check out the Activities page – the computer skills section has some great ideas. And, you can extend these yourself – for example any of the writing options would be great in the lab. Have them write that poem and create an original illustration to go with it.  Publish those in a class book using Mixbook. Join this one now!

National Poetry Month
Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Using that as a theme, have your students write poems in specific genres and create a class book. Or, how about teaching older elementary students how to create greeting cards in Word or Publisher or even just in a Paint program. They can write a poem for their card and create spring art work to go with it. Tie this in to Easter by having them write Easter poems or create Easter cards. For younger students, read a poem to them and have them illustrate it. Use the poetry tools at ReadWriteThink for a different way to create their poem.

Earth Day
April 22nd is Earth Day and a perfect opportunity to raise awareness in your school for environmental issues. Last year I used Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax as my theme for Earth Day in the computer lab. Each grade was either read the book or watched the video of The Lorax. Kindergarten-2nd Grade then drew their own picture of what they thought the environment would look like if the boy planted the seed he was given.

Grades 3-5 wrote an If I Were In Charge of The World poem about the environment and what they would do about it if they were in charge after viewing the video and listening to Judith Viorst’s poem. This ties together Earth Day and National Poetry Month. Students can use Write An Instant I’m In Charge of the World Poem. My Middle School students created a one page newspaper which included a Feature Article about what happened in The Lorax, a letter to the editor from the Lorax and an ad to sell Thneeds.

There are many sites online that have wonderful ideas and games related to Earth Day, the environment, our carbon footprints, etc. I think I’m going to use EekoWorld for Kindergarten – 3rd or 4th Grade somehow this year. The nice thing about this site is that they have a Teacher’s Guide with lots of ideas that I can use or adapt.

Easter
Find or create a Webquest about Easter. This is fun to do on the last day before spring break if your break is right before Easter. I have done these for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas in the past and I think I might do one for Easter this year. Here are a few I found online that look fun – I don’t know if all the links work on them or not but they’ll give you some ideas:

Adapt Winter Wonderland Ideas
I challenge you to take some of the Winter Wonderland project activities and make them your own for spring:

  • Change the Penguin Math Books to Easter Egg or Flower or Caterpillar & Butterfly Math Books. I’ve done these for Halloween and am currently doing one with dinosaurs.
  • Instead of winter pictures and a winter song, draw a spring picture and sing a spring song and make a video.

Use your imagination and the technology you have available to bring spring alive for your students:

  • Do you have cameras available? Take your students out for a walk around the campus and take pictures of what’s in bloom. Let each student take a picture and then upload them to a VoiceThread and let them talk about their picture.
  • April Showers Bring May Flowers – create some projects about rain or flowers or both!

Now, it’s your turn. What are you doing with your students in the computer lab (or using technology in your classroom) to celebrate spring? If you have some great ideas for the computer lab, you should think about posting them to the Computer Lab Activities wiki.

March 2, 2009 Lesson Plans No Comments on With March Comes Spring