Welcome

to The Computer Lab at

David Elementary with Mrs. Mills!

As of 9/25/07

Revised 10/17/07

Revised 11/20/07

Revised 12/19/07

Revised 1/18/08

Revised 2/22/08

Revised 4/3/08

Revised 5/5/08

Revised 6/6/08

We are very fortunate at David to have a lab with 29 computers for student use! Students come to the lab every third day as part of the Specials rotation. Students have learned “The Ten Commandments” of the Computer Lab (see below) and they are strictly enforced to help keep our computers in top working order and as clean as possible from germs.

As you know we had a very serious virus invade our computers in the district this month. Our computer lab was hit hard and classes were disrupted. The updates that follow are what most of the classes were able to accomplish. If a class missed a particular lesson, we will make it up in January! A safe and happy winter break to you all!

Have a safe and happy summer! Don’t forget to read, exercise, create and appreciate music!

Kindergarten has joined us in the computer lab this year! We are currently working on mouse practice (pointing, clicking and dragging) at the following website. Check it out!

www.tvokids.com/play/bees/bee2blueback.swf

We have also started learning about Doodle Pad in MaxWrite (a “kid friendly” version of MicroSoft Word)

We have explored a few more websites to practice mouse skills, listening skills and letter recognition.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/menu.shtml

www.abcya.com

We are learning the difference between software loaded onto the computer and Internet sites.

Two new favorite websites are:

www.starfall.com Loads of fun phonics!

www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games This one the kids refer to as “The Elves Games Chest.”

We still love learning new things at Starfall and ABCya!

We had fun making beach and farm scenes while learning letter sounds at www.fisher-price.com/us/littlepeople/section.asp?section=STAMP

It seems like every time we log onto www.abcya.com they have new and exciting activities!

For the 100^th Day of School we got to make a picture with 100 stamps in MaxWrite and print it!

We have finally learned about the keyboard! We know about Shift, Enter, Backspace, and the Space Bar! We have even learned to type our names with upper and lowercase letters. We loved printing our “Living/Not Living” project we made using MaxWrite!

We have used MaxShow to learn about “handles”, “re-sizing”, “clicking & dragging”, and “coping & pasting”! We have made a neat math page to share with our parents on Parent Night!

“Texas Our Texas” was a hit and worth everyday we missed computer lab to rehearse!

First Grade is currently working on mouse practice while reinforcing phonics using the following websites.

www.tvokids.com/play/bees/bee2blueback.swf

www.harcourtschool.com/activity/buzz/buzz.html

www.abcya.com

We have also begun learning about MaxWrite (a “kid friendly” version of MicroSoft Word)

A new favorite website for us is www.starfall.com

We had fun carving pumpkins at www.benjerry.com/fun_stuff/online

We have also learned lots of fun tools in Paint (found in the Accessories on our computers).

We too have enjoyed The Elves Game Chest at www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games where we play concentration, play checkers and decorate for the holidays to name a few!

We have begun learning about the keyboard! We know how to make capital letters, to backspace, how to go to the next line and how to put a space between each word. We have also had fun visiting Dr. Seuss’ website at www.seussville.com We are learning to play Tic-Tac-Toe in Paint.

We got to visit some of our TV friends at www.pbskids.org for some fun activities. We even learned about choosing a balanced meal! For the 100^th Day of School we played “Count Along to 100” at http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/count

We’ve been very busy preparing our “surprise” slideshow for Parent Night! We have also been busy rehearsing for our program “Color Factory.” Just you wait!!

We are back in the Computer Lab now and practicing telling time at www.harcourtschool.com/activity/willy/willy.html. What kind of dog can tell time? We have learned about th “3 little lights” on the keyboard and how to turn them off and on. We have reviewed some basic keys on the keyboard. We have had the most fun learning to “copy & paste” in Paint! We have played “What’s Different?” with insects!

We played lots of BINGO online and had some Free Choice.

Second Grade has taken the STAR test to determine their reading level for the AR Program and learned the difference between websites and software. We have also learned many of the tools in Paint (an accessory on all of our computers) and have and we have learned to rotate Tangrams at the following website.

www.abcya.com

Yeah we start learning keyboarding this year! The keyboarding software we have at David Elementary is called UltraKey. We have now learned how to strike the keys in “Home Row” with the correct fingers! We have also learned about the “finger feelies”. Parents, do YOU know what they are? See below under “All Grades” for more about keyboarding practice.

We have been practicing our math facts with Math Baseball at www.funbrain.com

We love UltraKey to practice our keyboarding because we all go at our own pace! We did a fun “Rainbow” project in MicroSoft Word where we learned how to change fonts and colors!

Check out www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games

You know about the mockingbird and the bluebonnet. But do you know the Texas state vehicle? What about the state sport? (No, it is NOT football) Well stay tuned because we are researching Texas state symbols to make a slide show for you on Parent Night!

We sure worked hard on our slideshow for Parent Night! Hope you enjoyed it as much as “Straight From the Heart!”

Our keyboarding skills get better everyday with UltraKey! We had fun visiting our PBS friends at www.pbskids.org. We LOVED printing (in color!) our “Rainbow” project when we learned how to change the font and font color!

We have used our spelling words to learn how to make a numbered list in MicroSoft Word. We also learned how to make an alphabetical list! Wow, it’s amazing how many math problems we can solve in two minutes at www.primarygames.com/flashcards/twomin.htm We have also learned about links. We learned how to look up a book in the library from Mrs. Stevens!

We got to use our keyboarding skills to type a paragraph for our story quilts for Mrs. Clark! Lots of keyboarding with UltraKey and some new fun activities at www.abcya.com.

Third Grade has been brushing up on their keyboarding skills with UltraKey and is about to begin doing research on line to prepare for the slideshow presentation they will have on display for Parent Night!

We are taking our information learned and started our MicroSoft Power Point slides!

Wow! What a treat! A Better You! A Better Me! was great! Mrs. Allen and students are ƒƒƒƒ! And wow, what a slideshow!

We have been practicing our keyboarding and even went to www.puzzlemaker to make a Word Search with our spelling words!

www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games has an online Rubik Cube! Mrs. Mills says she cannot even solve it when she is holding one in her hands much less on the computer!

Q: So, how do you ever become good at keyboarding? A: Practice! Practice! Practice!

We are excited about the “Holy Cow” project we are making using Paint and MicroSoft Word.

We loved printing our “Holy Cow” pictures on the color printer! For the 100^th Day of School we played “Give the Dog a Bone” at http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/DogBone/gamebone.html

Wow! Our keyboarding practice has really paid off! We learned how to change fonts and font size in MicroSoft Word and got to print our “Top Ten.”

Mrs. Stevens came by and taught us about the new library system. Way cool! We made a really cool multiplication table in MicroSoft Excel. We printed it so we can use it to practice our math facts!

We made dot-to-dots in Paint and found some cool new activities at www.abcya including some fun Tangram puzzles!

Fourth Grade is learning about adding “Favorites” to the Favorites menu. I am extremely impressed with their keyboarding skills with UltraKey! I think many practiced over the summer! Yeah!

I’ve learned a lot about these kids from the letters they typed for me. We have all great kids here at David! Students were shown a very old typewriter; they were amazed there was no delete key!

We have done our research and are busy making slides for the MicroSoft Power Point presentation planned for Open House in December.

We missed a day or two to finish making our slides “fancy” because of the computer virus. We think they looked pretty great anyway! And how about that Nutcracker? Was that not a fantastic show!? Thank you Mrs. Allen!

We got to listen to MLK Jr’s speech “I Have a Dream” at www.americanrhetoric.com It’s a cool site with 100 top speeches!

We got to make and then play The Dot Game in Paint! For the 100^th Day of School we played “First to 100” on the computer. Ask us to play both on paper the next time we have to wait for a doctor’s appointment or for our food to be served. There is a definite strategy to win every time! We have started making bookmarks to donate to our library!

The bookmarks look great! We printed cool crossword puzzles we made at www.puzzlemaker.com with some of our computer words!

We went to www.puzzlemaker.com to make a crossword puzzle with our computer terms. We have learned about how to access the calculator on the computer and some cool solitaire games!

We got to use some of Computer Lab time to publish our poetry. Mrs. Mills shared her own poetry anthologies. We learned about calories and how many are in fast food! Ahhhh! Think before you eat!

All grades occasionally have “Free Choice” where they can go to any website approved by me, use Paint (found on your Accessories menu) or practice keyboarding skills.

There are a lot of great keyboarding programs that can be purchased and dozens of free ones online including:

www.sense-lang.org/typing

www.topsy.org/keyboarding.html

www.davis.k12.ut.us/cjh/appliedtech/Business/keyboarding/Index.html

Remember: Proper technique is the key to accurate and speedy keyboarding!