Life Cycle of a Butterfly

In Mrs. Eckhardt's 2nd grade class, the students are using Microsoft Power Point to illustrate the life cycle of a butterfly. They started the project by watching as their butterflies developed in the classroom. Then they used the Internet to find pictures to illustrate their life cycle Power Point presentations. They found some really great web sites with butterfly art and information including the ones listed below:

• http://butterflywebsite.com/clipart/constructtable.cfm


• http://www.webstarwest.com/Butterfly/index.html


• http://bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly/


• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/


• http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/insects-butterfly.shtml

Rulers and Measurement

Last week students in Ms. Dhaliwal's class at Emerson Elementary started learning how to use rulers and other measuring tools. They took rulers and yard sticks and measured everything in and out of the classroom. To integrate technology into the lesson, we used the laptop computers and a SMART Board to practice. The students opened a SMART Notebook file from flash drives and proceeded to measure the objects on the screen using a ruler that can be manipulated to measure how tall and how wide each object is.

When they are finished measuring and recording each object, they will go to the following URL's to practice in a game like format:

• http://www.quizville.com/usingRuler.php
• http://www.funbrain.com/measure/index.html

50 Computer Activities from Scholastic

While searching for lesson materials today, I spent some time on the Scholastic web site. I found that Scholastic provides 50 quick, compelling one-session activities that can be used to incorporate interactive learning and technology into lesson plans. Each activity requires no prep and can be completed in 15-30 minutes. You can find these activities at: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/clf/index.htm.

PESD Classroom and Technology Blogs

Since our team began to introduce blogging to our classroom teachers at the beginning of this school year, several have jumped in with blogs of their own. Check it out by clicking on the links below:

http://mrsbernalsclass.blogspot.com/
http://pharris205.blogspot.com/
http://msshores.blogspot.com/
http://msrentzsclass.blogspot.com/
http://mracedosclass.blogspot.com/
http://storiesthataredigital.blogspot.com/
http://bethunenews.blogspot.com/
http://whatsupmrroper.blogspot.com/
http://floresclass.blogspot.com/
http://www.mrquicksclass.blogspot.com/
http://msfranksclass.blogspot.com/
http://bethunemediacenter.blogspot.com/

http://pesdtechnostuff.blogspot.com/
http://pesdtechnology.blogspot.com/
http://pesdinstructionaltech.blogspot.com/

If you are ready to create your own blog and would like some help, call the Instructional Technology Team.

Speaking of Dinosaurs . . .

Here's another great site for teachers and children engaging in the study of dinosaurs:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/dinosaurs/

Check out the "Research Starters" link to find a list of other web pages with lots of good information for teachers and kids.

My Favorite Dinosaur

Third grade students at Dunbar Elementary are having their first adventure using laptop computers. They are using the laptops to do Internet research on the dinosaur of their choice. After they find the required information, they are creating a presentation using SMART Notebook which they will present to the class using a SMART Board.

While planning for this activity, I found some great web sites for the students to use for their research:

• http://www.livescience.com/dinosaurs/
• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/
• http://kids.yahoo.com/dinosaurs
• http://dsc.discovery.com/guides/dinosaur/dinosaur.html
• http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/
• http://www.kidsdinos.com/

The children will work on the project for about 90 minutes one day a week through the end of February. At first, the set-up each day is a little slow. As the students get better starting up the computers and logging in, they have more and more time to do the "fun stuff"--Internet research and creating their presentation.

I like this project because it gives us the opportunity to teach some important (and really boring) technology skills as we work to teach science and language objectives.

10 Days and Counting

There are just 10 school days until the winter break and lots of activities with a holiday theme are taking place--some by plan and some by accident. Last week I went to a 2nd grade class to work with students using Easy Tech (an on-line technology skills program). The Internet at the school went down, so we had to do "Plan B" instead.

I learned early in my career that it's wise to always have a "Plan B". Instead of going on-line, I introduced the children to SMART Notebook (a software program that we use with our SMART Boards). Below, you'll see the students and some of the great holiday drawings they created. It took about 10 minutes to teach them enough about the program that they could create these masterpieces.