What I love about what I do is seeing the growth of students throughout the years! By having them from kindergarten through 4th grade, I can watch not only the growth in technology skills but motor skills, artistic ability, and more.
Our third graders worked on their self-portraits in MS Paint this week and it was amazing to see the differences from last year to this year – much more detail. The most notable change was in how they designed their eyes. Younger students tend to have the eyes look forward but several of the 3rd graders made the pupils gaze in other directions. Another interesting addition was backgrounds – not just plain, one-color backgrounds. Intricately designed backgrounds filled many canvases! Here are some of the examples.
Next week we type “I Am” poems, using the template found here. Then we upload everything into their blogs.
Our 2nd graders finished their self-portraits in MS Paint this week and will be uploading them to their blog during their next computer lesson. I love watching them draw – there are those who add all kinds of detail and then there are some who draw just the basics and announce they are “done.” For that group, we have to do quite a bit of encouraging to even get a background, ears, a nose, or skin color!
What was so exciting is how much the students learned about copying and pasting features in the paint program. I showed them how to draw one eye and then how to copy and paste to make the 2nd one. They picked up on that so quickly and were very excited to be able to duplicate the eye rather that attempt to draw another one that was supposed to look just like the first (not easy to do!).
Here are some samples:
The students have also written biopoems that they typed in MS Word. When they create their post next week, the children will upload both the picture as well as the poem.
The students will certainly be “stretched” next week. They’ll need to copy the poem from Word and paste it into their blog. Next step will be to insert their picture which means they’ll have to find it on their computer. I really think they can do it though. I’ll share the blogs after they’ve finished their posts.
