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Internet
Projects
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 Newsletter
Exchange
We exchange monthly e-mail newsletters with
classes of children from different states and countries.
Each newsletter covers a specific topic, such as a typical
day at school, our favorite sports and games, books and
authors we like, and our summer plans. This project
helps us practice map skills, work on letter writing,
discover how children are alike and different, use the
computer and e-mail to communicate, and make new friends
throughout the world. We will exchange news once each month
from October to May.
Our partner schools for this school year are second grade
classes from:
- St.
Julians Primary School in St. Julians , Malta
- Kärsta skola in Lillkyrka, Sweden
- St.
Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan
Capistrano, California
- Deerwood
Elementary School in Kissimmee, Florida
- Rachel
Carson Elementary School
in Gaithersburg, Maryland
- George
H. Dunbar School in New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Blanchard
Elementary School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri
- Minisink
Valley Elementary School in Slate Hill, New
York
- Austinburg
Elementary School in Austinburg, Ohio
- Clarendon
Elementary School in Clarendon , Texas
Fairy
Tale/Folk Tale Cyber
Dictionary
Rosie
and Ralphie Rhino from the San Diego Zoo
Signs
of Autumn, Signs of
Spring -
Autumn Session
"Oh,
the Places We'll Go!"
Project
Postcard
Geography
2001-2002
READ
for
2002
The
Great Skittles Challenge
Goldy
the Bear from the UK
Frosty
Readers
2002
Journey
North -
Tulips
Signs
of Autumn, Signs of
Spring -
Spring Session
Graph
Goodies
World
Weather
Watch
That's
What Happens When It's
Spring!
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Technology
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Our first technology project of the year was to create
our own personal stationery using
Print Shop in the
iMac Lab. We designed our stationery with our names at the
top and a row graphic at the bottom. After we printed out
our stationery, our teacher had copies made so we can use
our personal stationery for writing notes and letters. We
are learning how to find applications on the desktop, open
and close applications and documents, save documents in our
own folders on the server, highlight text to change size and
fonts, resize graphics to fit the page, and print our
finished documents.
We have started to use Reading
Counts, a reading comprehension program. We
read special Reading Counts books that are just right for us
then sign up to take a ten question comprehension quiz on
the computer. We can find Reading Counts books in the
classroom, in the library, or at home.
We each wrote two pieces inspired by the "Oh, the Places
We'll Go" Internet project. We wrote about "Our Important
Places" in the format of "The Important Book" then used
KidPix Deluxe to
illustrate our pieces. We also composed acrostic poems based
on some of our favorite places then used pencils, crayons,
colored pencils, and markers to make illustrations on
tagboard. Last we scanned our drawings and saved them as GIF
images to place on the web page. Our poems and illustrations
are published on our class web page.
We also scanned our drawings for the retelling of the tall
tale of Paul Bunyan. You can see our technology work if you
go to the Student
Work section of the 2K page. Enjoy!
We worked on the annual Family Celebration project during
December. First we used an
Inspiration web
template to plan the important details of our family
celebrations, then we created a storyboard to help plan our
illustration, and finally we used
KidPix to make a
slide that combines all of our ideas. The slides will all be
combined into a
KidPix slide show
which will be shown at Open House in March. Our work is also
posted on the 2K page.
We are using Graph
Club, a math program in which we enter
mathematical data and create from one to five different
types of graphs. We used this program to record data from
"The Great Skittles challenge".
We are also learning how to use
KidWorks Deluxe
to write, illustrate, and publish our writing. We will be
able to use this program in the iMac Lab and in the
classroom.
Our teacher used
Kidspiration to
help us organize our ideas for the November Email Newsletter
Project. We also used this application to organize facts
about the life of Snowflake Bentley for the Snowy Reader
2002 telecollaborative Internet project. We are learning to
use this concept mapping software to plan our own writing
and have worked on a biography web and a second web of our
choice.
Another application that is connected to our social
studies curriculum is
Neighborhood Map
Machine. We are learning to create maps with
map keys, buildings, streets, and other features. We are
creating individual maps of imaginary places or places we
know about.
We are using
TimeLiner to
create timelines for the people we read about in the
biographies we chose for March. You can use TimeLiner to
create several different types of timelines that can be used
for many different projects.
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