Tag Archives for " computer lesson "

The Animated Moon

Appropriate for Grades: 5 up

Overview:

Produce an animated slideshow that shows how the moon moves around the earth. Include a written and verbal explanation.

Activity:

  • Start PowerPoint.
  • Fill in the title slide.
  • Insert a new slide and make it blank.
  • Import clipart or pictures of the Moon, Earth and Sun.
  • These could also be drawn using the Drawing tools.
  • Click on the first object.
  • Go to Slideshow menu then Custom animation.
  • Click on Add effect: Motion Path: Draw custom path: Freeform.
  • Using the pencil, draw the path that the object takes e.g. the
  • moon moves around the Earth
  • Insert a text box and add an explanation of the illustration.
  • Using the microphone, record a verbal explanation and set it to
  • play when clicked.
  • Add new slides to show the way that the Earth moves around
  • the Sun
  • Insert buttons to click to move to the next slide.
  • Complete and test the presentation.

 

Resources/Materials Needed:

  • Software: PowerPoint
  • Paper / Printer Microphone

 

Further ideas and comments

 

Poetry to Sit Still For

Appropriate for Grades: 4 up

Overview:

Build a collection of different types of poems. Compile a booklet with an explanation of a type of poetry and an example on each page.

Activity:

  • Start a word processor .
  • Make a title page headed “Poetry Anthology”.
  • Begin a new page
  • Head the page with a type of poetry.
  • Leave a line space.
  • Add a definition / description of the poetry.
  • Leave a line space.
  • Add a poem of choice to illustrate the poetry type.
    •  limerick
    •  alliteration
    •  cinquain
    •  onomatopoeia o couplet
    •  metaphor
    •  haiku
    •  hyperbole
    •  imagery
    •  alliteration
    •  nursery rhyme
  • Repeat the process to complete the anthology.
  • Poems can be collected from books or the Internet. Ensure that
  • they are correctly referenced.

 

Resources/Materials Needed:

Software: word processor
Printer, paper
Poetry websites and books
Collection of poetry styles and definitions

 

Further ideas and comments

All the News worth Printing

Appropriate for Grades: 4 up

Overview:

The students will work in small groups or individually to produce a local community newsletter. They will need to collect relevant articles from local newspapers to rewrite in their own journalistic style.

Activity:

  • Open a Word Processor or desktop publishing program.
  • Using the text tool, make a box for the title/heading
  • Choose the image tool and insert a photograph of a local event.
  • Repeat this process for each photo.
  • Resize the photographs so that they fit into the page properly.
  • Move the photographs so that they sit on the page in a newsletter style of layout.
  • Choose the text tool and drag out a text box in which to type your first story.
  • Repeat this process until the stories are complete.
  • Make a text box under each photograph for a caption explaining what it is showing.
  • Insert another page and repeat the layout by adding more text, photos, images, etc
  • Save and print a copy.

Resources/Materials Needed:

Software: Word Processor or desktop publishing
Printer , paper
Photos, images, stories
Example papers

Further ideas and comments

You could divide up the newsletter into group sections for small group work e.g. one group could do sport, one group could do world news.

Synonym Names

Appropriate for Grades: 3 up

Overview:

In this lesson the students will produce a 1 page poster that contains their name, an acrostic poem and a collection of synonyms.

Activity:

  • Open a word processor .
  • Type the heading ME.
  • Leave a couple of lines space then type the first letter of a name.
  • Press enter to go down to the next line and type the second letter .
  • Repeat this process until all letters of the name have been typed.
  • Using the arrow keys, move back up to next to the first letter
  • and turn the name into an acrostic poem.
  • Move back to the first letter / word again and press the spacebar then a dash then leave a space.
  • Type 3 synonyms for each word in the acrostic.
  • Save and print a copy.

Resources/Materials Needed:

  • Software: word processor
  • Printer, paper • clipart

Further ideas and comments

Students might like to change the colors of the writing and add clipart to their work.
Brave – strong, courageous, hardy Radical – wild, fun, unusual
Attentive – awake, aware, conscientious Deadly – harmful, homicidal, injurious

Collect the Weather Lesson Plan

Students are to study weather patterns and keep a record of these results in a notepad. They are then to record and graph these results into a spreadsheet program each day.

Activity

1. As part of a unit on weather, discuss the various instruments and ways of measuring changes in the local weather.
2. Have students write and illustrate 5 common instruments used into their books.
3. Demonstrate how each instrument is used and how to record the readings taken.
4. Introduce the activity of daily weather records and through the use of a pre prepared example sheet, help students to develop skills needed to interpret deductions about the weather patterns from the readings.
5. Choose a student each morning to take the temperature and other weather measurements.
6. Ask all students to record into their notepads these details including cloud shape, rain/shine, etc. If your school has a weather station, ask if your class can use it.
7. Continue to record this information on a daily basis for up to a week.
8. Start a spreadsheet program and begin a new document.
9. Enter the recorded information using column headings to separate the data.
10. While your students are in the spreadsheet program, get them also to graph the ongoing findings.
11. Print out the data and the graph on a sheet of A4 paper.
12. Discuss the daily changes. With printouts of both the table and the graph for a one month period, get your students to write a report and present it to the class.

Materials

notepad, pen, pencil a weather station if your school has one, access to other weather info, thermometer, computer, spreadsheet program