Category: Lesson plans

#32: How to Use Art to Teach Grammar

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Here’s a great lesson that uses every child’s innate love of color to learn grammar. All you need is MS Word or Google Docs), a quick introduction to the toolbars and tools, and about 25 minutes to complete. If you’re the tech lab teacher, this gives you a chance to reinforce the grammar lesson the classroom is teaching and teach tech skills students need (click to enlarge):

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From Structured Learning’s Tech Lab Toolkit Volume I[/caption]

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#71: Beginning Graphs in MS Excel

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Excel makes graphs simple and easy for beginners. Even my parent helpers are amazed at how much students can do with a simple F11 shortkey and a right click. This lesson plan works just as well with Google Sheets though you may have to adapt a few of the instructions.

Over the next few months, we’ll provide a series of lessons on spreadsheet basics you can use in your K-8 classroom. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

If the lesson plans are blurry, click on them for a full size alternative. (more…)

3 Projects to Teach 1st Grade Architecture

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Many Fridays, I report on a wonderful website or project my classes and parents love. This one is teaching architecture to youngers:

Lesson Plan:

Three projects over six weeks and your students will learn about blueprints, room layout, dimensions, and more. Plus, they’ll understand how to think about a three-dimensional object and then spatially lay it out on paper. This is challenging, but fun for first graders.

Spend two weeks on each projects. Incorporate a discussion of spaces, neighborhoods, communities one week. Practice the drawing, then do the final project which students can save and print. Kids will love this unit.

First, draw a picture in your drawing program of the child’s home. If you don’t already have a class favorite, check this list. Many have architecture tools so show students how to find them. Have kids think about their house, walk through it. They’ll have to think in three dimensions and will soon realize they can’t draw a two-story house. In that case, allow them to pick which rooms they wish to include and concentrate on what’s in the room.

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Classroom layout–through the eyes of a First Grader[/caption]

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57+ Kindergarten Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons

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Here’s the list of Kindergarten websites I use most often during the school year. Notice that many of the headings are links to more websites under that theme:

Animals

Art

1. Coloring Books
2. Drawing

Coding

Critical Thinking

Digital Citizenship

1. Bullying–a read-along book
2. Cybersmart Hero
3. Hector’s World–Cyberbullying

Farms

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14 Valentine Sites For Students

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Here are fourteen fun Valentine sites to fill those few minutes betwixt and between lessons, projects, bathroom breaks, lunch, and everything else:

[gallery type="slideshow" ids="44901,44902,44903,58336,58337,58338,58339"]

Do you use any I missed? If you’re looking for more, here’s my collection.

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#72: Check Your Math in Excel

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This is one of the most popular lessons I teach to Excel beginners. It is relevant, instantly usable and makes sense from the beginning. Click the images below to enlarge them for viewing.

[gallery columns="2" ids="45219,45218"]

–from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom

http://eepurl.com/chNlYb

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Photoshop Basics

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Before teaching Lesson Plans using Photoshop, be sure to cover the basics with students:

Open Photoshop. Notice the tool bars at the top. These will change depending upon the tool you choose from the left side. These are the crux of Photoshop. We’ll cover about ten of them in fifth grade. The rest will have to wait. The right-hand tools are used independent of the left-hand tools. They are more project oriented.

Click the File Browser tool (top right-ish). It shows you the folders on your computer. From here, you can select the picture you’d like to edit (or use File-open) (more…)

How to Use Excel to Teach Math Arrays

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Over the next few months, we’ll provide a series of lessons on spreadsheet basics you can use in your K-8 classroom. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

Today:

Grade Level: 5th (or whichever grade you are teaching arrays)

Background: None. This is an intro to MS Excel or spreadsheets

Vocabulary: Excel, cell, rows, columns, paint bucket, borders, arrays, resize, formulas

Time: About 30 minutes

Steps:

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Know Computer Hardware

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Learning computers starts in kindergarten with understanding hardware. This lesson plan (#103 in the lesson plan book noted below) includes three pages. Introduce less with K, more each year until by sixth grade, students are good hardware problem solvers because they understand the basics.

Page 2 is an assessment you can either print out and have students fill in or push out to students to be completed online.

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How to Keep a Timecard in Excel

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One of the most popular applications of math is through spreadsheets (like Excel) that make those numbers relevant to everyday life. We’re going to provide a series of lessons on spreadsheet basics you can use in your K-8 classroom. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

Today:

This project (#70 in the collection of #110) hides a spreadsheet’s power behind a template you create and students fill out at home. If they’re older and more familiar with spreadsheets, involve them in creating the template. If the lesson plans are blurry, click on them for a full size alternative.

Note: The example uses Excel, but it works just as well with Google Spreadsheets.