Let's Type!

By the third week of school, I was getting into a nice groove and ready to start our typing lessons with everyone except Kindergarten.  My Kindergarteners still needed to learn to use a mouse!

 For Kindergarten, I went to abcya.com and chose a mouse skill game from the Kindergarten skills section. I chose Build a House, because I felt it would appeal to all of my students.  I used google chrome to place a short cut on each of my computers (this is a long and daunting task, I REALLY need to find an easier way!).  While we were all still sitting at my carpeted area, I showed the students how to use their mouse to point at the icon and double click. I then showed them all the tools in the game and how to use them. Finally, I sent each student to their computer to try the game on their own. I think I had to open the game for 95% of my students and I had some who could not use the tools.  I spent each class period walking from student to student to help them each complete one task. Kindergarten class seemed looooong this week, but looking back it was so worth it!

Also, since then, I have found a much better mouse skills game called Bees and Honey! It takes kids step by step through pointing the mouse where you want, clicking and then clicking and dragging.  I LOVE this game!

For my First and Second graders, I am using Dance Mat Typing from BBC. It is a fun game that teaches children touch typing using the correct fingers. It is music based and funny.  They love it!

For my Third through Fifth grades, I am using typing.com. Typing.com allows you to set up your own classrooms and student lists and give each student their own log-in....for FREE!  It allows you to run reports and track progress and keeps typing test scores. Wonderful, wonderful resource!

You can find my full lesson plan here.

Do you have any easier ways for putting shortcuts on computers?  Should I just get brave enough to let them navigate there on their own?

The Emoji Project

The second week of school, I came up with an Emoji project for all 1st-5th graders.  I had them use Paint to design their own emoji and then asked them to use the text tool to type about themselves.

• The emoji and the background color can't be the same
• You have to type your name
• 3rd-5th grade typed a paragraph about themselves
• 1st and 2nd typed a sentence about themselves.

This was a great project because the students practiced:

1. Opening programs using the start menu
2. Selecting and using different tools
3. Mouse Control
4. Keyboarding
5. Saving and Naming their work
6. Closing programs

Now let's be honest, my first graders had a really hard time with saving and naming their work, so I ended up individually showing them how (also known as "doing it for them").  But still...It was a great learning experience for us all!  It also helped me learn a little about each of my students.

After they finished their emojis, I spent the next week moving them over to my thumb drive and organizing them by class.  Unfortunately our computer lab does not allow the students to save their work to a cloud or drive, it only allows them to be saved to individual computers.  So, it was a very tedious task to go to each of the 25 computers and pull off the students work.

Next, I used a free online collage maker ( I like fotor) to make a photo grid of only the emoji's of each class (I plan on using the text portion for another project later).  I then saved the photo grid to my computer and inserted it into a Word document.  At the top of the word document I have a # with the teachers name.

This is from a 4th grade class

I then printed and placed all of them on the wall outside my computer lab with the # of my school name.

It added a few more hastgags (#technology, #ComputerLab and #LearningIsFun) and managed to get this up just before open house!

It is now 5 weeks later and the students still love looking for their emoji as they are standing in line, waiting to come into computer lab.

Stay tuned to see what display I am doing with the written portion of the emoji project!

And if you want to see what my lesson plan looked like for the week, you can find it here.

What are some great computer projects you have done with your students?  Is there an easier way to get students saved work? Seriously, if there is...help a teacher out!

Computer Lab Planning and Organization 101

Once I had my computer lab decorated....sort of, I started really thinking about the things I want to teach and general organization.

The lady who was in the computer lab before me left me her plan book, and it was/is a great resource.  However, I teach computer and knew I would prefer to do my lesson plans electronically.  I decided to use Excel and set up a template with each grade and the time I have them each day.  (You can view and download my template here.)


Next, I started thinking about what I wanted to teach in what order. I have decided to break my year up in the 4 nine week segments we have.  The first nine weeks will by computer parts and typing, the second nine weeks will be Internet and Social Media (safety, research, etc), the third nine weeks will be all about Microsoft Office and its applications and finally the fourth nine weeks we will delve into some basic coding and other special interests.  I should note here, that my state does not have an elementary computer curriculum or standards, so I am pretty free to teach what I want as long as my principal agrees.  At the request of my administrators, I will factor in ELA and skills that will be useful for testing.


After I had a blue print of what my year will hopefully look like, I literally started to panic over not knowing the 600 kids names that would come to my computer lab EACH WEEK.  Seating chart!  I needed a seating chart.  I used Microsoft word to make a template of my lab by using the shape tool to make rectangles and then I fill in each students name once it is printed. (You can find my template here.)  For the beginning of the year, I have sat the students boy/girl as much as possible. I find this seating arrangement cuts down on disruptive behaviors.


Because I have an affinity for binders, I KNEW I would be using a binder, so I bought a nice orange 1 inch binder during the back to school tax free event in my state.  I also bought divider tabs.  At the front of my binder, I have that weeks lesson plans and then a tab for each day of the week. I have each classes seating chart and class list (provided by my school) in the order they visit me each day.  In the front binder pocket, I also keep the red/green cards my school uses for fire/tornado/evacuation drills and my current to-do list.  In the back I also keep a copy of the schools master schedule and any other documents I may need.  I literally flip two pages each class period and only need to grab this one binder if we ever evacuate/have a fire drill!

I also created class lists with in Excel (can you tell I'm an Excel junkie?) to keep up with attendance, pull outs, behavior problems etc. Now, I'm going to be honest...this wasn't actually done before the beginning of school, but I had started the project. (I think entering each student is TOTALLY worth it, especially since I plan to still be here next year and can copy and past the students!)  I made once excel spreadsheet and have a tab for each teacher.  There is a place for notes (allergies, sped, etc) and then I make a column every week with the date I have the class and place an "X" for here, "P" for pull out and "A" for absent.  If I need to note that I had to change a students seat, administer a test, etc, I note that instead of my "code".  This lets me view the students by class or search for them by name or grade...it has proven EXTREMELY useful already! You can view my template here. 

And that is about as organized as I was when the school year started.  Next week, I will start posting lesson plans and resources, behavior tools and changes that I am making along the school year.  I hope to have you caught up to where I currently am by the end of next week!

How do you organize your computer lab?  Do you keep up with student data?  Any tips, suggestions or questions?