Truth, Tech, and Teaching

Continuing my Easter computer class lessons with the projects I did for 3rd and 4th grade. Starting in 3rd grade, my students are given Google for Education accounts, giving access to Google Classroom, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Drawings, etc. (I'll have to write another post on Google Classroom sometime, but I'll say right now it's an awesome way for me to get assignment templates and instructions to students really easily. All my projects in 3rd grade and up are much more interesting because I have this tool.) The 3rd and 4th grade projects help them reflect on the Easter Story while becoming more proficient with some of the Google programs. 3rd Grade My 3rd graders used Google Drawings for the first time on this project and learned a little bit about the basics of graphic design - neatly arranging text boxes and images to convey a message and choosing eye-catching colors and fonts. They made small posters highlighting five important events in the Easter Story, a...

I have written a series of posts describing the computer class activities I did this year for Easter. As a Catholic school teacher, I enjoy incorporating faith-based topics to teach new technology skills. This post will focus on the activities I did in my Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classes - Easter themed games, videos, and word processing. Kindergarten At this point in the year, my kindergarten students have just begun to read independently in their regular class and can recognize all letters and many words. I try to give them many computer activities in the second half of the year to reinforce word recognition. But they do plenty of "just for fun" computer games as well to practice mouse control and let them be creative on the computer. Most of the games/activities I use for the younger grades come from  Abcya.com . Kindergarten did these three Easter games: Easter Word Search Easter Egg Hunt Make an Easter Egg Since their computer activities presented o...