Category: Lesson plans

LESSON PLANNING

#45: How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography

Where Am I?

Use MS Word target diagram to organize the Universe. Start with the student’s town in the center and build out. Show students how to color the diagram. For olders, add a table at the bottom with the location and a fact about it. This is a great way to show kids how they can organize their thoughts with pictures, diagrams, tables—lots of ways other than simple text

[caption id="attachment_929" align="alignleft" width="182"]Sample diagram Sample diagram[/caption]

Grade Level: 3-5

Background: Using MS Word.

Vocabulary: diagram, graphic organizer, solar system

Time: About 30 minutes

Steps:

  • Open MS Word. Add a heading to the top.
  • Add a title–Where We Are–centered, bold and font 14. Use this to point out the toolbar with the four alignment tools, bold, fonts and font size (more…)
Photoshop

#7: Fifth Grade Cropping in Photoshop

Before trying this lesson, start here and here and here, with background training on image editing. Don’t worry. It’s not hard–just the basics.

Ready? Let’s start with what Adobe Photoshop is–a grown-up KidPix, and the default photo-editing program for anyone serious about graphics. This series of projects (available in 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom Volume I) introduces students to a traditionally-challenging program in an easy to understand way, each scaffolding to the next, thus avoiding the frustration and confusion inherent in most Photoshop training.

There are three ways to crop in Photoshop:

(more…)

#12: Create Simple Shapes in Excel

What’s the first thing you think of when I say, Excel. Numbers, right–turning data into information. That is Excel’s ‘killer app’, but the ingenious human brain has come up with another striking use for Excel: Drawing. I spent a long time trying to find a lesson that taught drawing in Excel and/or offered example. I finally gave up and created my own. (more…)