Here is a simple Google Doc Halloween lesson that I originally created for a 2nd grade class. It gets students to play around with the simple, basic functions of Google Docs in a fun way. Here's what students do inside this activity:
read a Halloween poem
change font and color of 2 important word from each line
use the Research Tool to insert an image to match lines of the poem
learn how a Google Drawing works inside of a Doc
Teaching students how to use the Research Tool is an important feature in Docs. Just in case students finish the activity early, I added the magnetic poetry to the 2nd page for students. Students are invited to create a spooky sentence, or a spooky poem.
Halloween always sparks some really creative an imaginative ideas and I used to always have my 4th grade students write different kinds of poetry in October.
This Google HyperDoc gets students to plan and create a Cinquain poem. Completing a class copy of the Cinquain Poem Template Doc is a great way to get the students thinking about their own poem. After the poem draft is completed, you can give your students art supplies for their final draft, or I gave suggestions of some tech tools that they can use to creatively display their work.
I kept this template neutral so that it can be used any time of year, not just Halloween.
If you have any questions, or would like help trying out any tech lessons in your classroom, please email me at pacadag@unionsd.org.
Hopefully by now you have heard about our Digital Citizenship Video Contest and have been promoting it with your students. To make it easier to get started, we'd like to highlight some of our favorite easy to use video creation tools that we are suggesting students use to make their videos. If they have access to iPads at school (or at home), Adobe Voice is probably the quickest and easiest way to make a professional looking video slideshow. It is the same app that we used to make the video promoting the contest and it's free!
It comes with access to a huge library of copyright friendly free graphics or images that are easy to search for and use that are automatically added in the credits at the end. This speeds up the process of making the video and eliminates the problem of copyright infringement while modeling proper use.
Don't have enough iPads to go around? Why not have students work in groups for a fantastic opportunity to collaborate?
Still worried that it might take too long or be too hard? No pressure or anything, but check out this Adobe Voice video made during one center session by a student in Mrs. Kamali's kindergarten class giving a tour of the classroom. Claire even used her own images! Now that's pretty impressive!
For more information on how to use Adobe Voice, check out this tutorial that will make it even easier to get started. Enjoy!
And of course, this week's EduWinner goes to Helen Kamali! The second time her Kindergartners made Adobe Voice videos, they demonstrated their understanding of the life cycle of a pumpkin and the structure of a book. No parent volunteers for centers? It was no problem. Her students made them all by themselves! We think Mrs. Kamali must have done a great job of teaching them. She claims she's not so tech savvy, but we disagree. Congratulations, Mrs. Kamali. We are amazed!
If you want to learn how to do this in your class, I highly suggest you attend Helen's Union University class. It's called, "Movie Making in the Primary Classroom" on Monday, November 16th from 3:30-5 at Noddin.
