Week 16 - Happy Holidays!

We had a short week due to the start of Winter Break so it was a good opportunity for the Baker students to enjoy some of the fun things they can do with computers. I wanted to take this opportunity to wish all of the Baker families a happy and healthy holiday season. Thanks for being such a warm and caring community. Looking forward to a great year in 2015!

Week 15 - Formatting Type Part 3

For their third week formatting type, the students completed an exercise where they needed to make an unformatted selection of type match a previously formatted selection of the same type. With some help from friends like Kroc, the first graders showed off the skills they've acquired the past few weeks. Great job, gang! I think we're ready to try something new!

Week 14 - Formatting Type Part 2

We experimented with the appearance of our type again this week. The first graders completed an exercise where they used bold, italics, colors, size, font, and underline to make words match illustrations. Leaning trees, a wide pig, a fancy dog, and a couple of fish gave us plenty of opportunities to add some life to our text.

Week 13 - Formatting Type

When we create stories, poems, letters, etc., we don't just communicate with the words we use. We also communicate by the way our words look. Bold and italic type are used for emphasis. Colors can help communicate a feeling or emotion. Type size can be adjusted to give particular words more or less importance. And the endless variety of fonts can range from silly and playful to structured and traditional. Type formatting can be a very important form of communication.

This week, we introduced the first graders to type formatting, showing them the different ways they can change the appearance of their type and the process to go about changing it. We used bold, italics, underline, colors, fonts, and size. Watch out...now that our first graders have this new knowledge, their creative floodgates are open.

Week 12 - Saving (Snowmen)

I gave the first graders a tough challenge this week: think of a way to make a snowman that will never melt. There were some very interesting suggestions...robot snowmen, giant freezers in the hallways of Baker, snowmen made of huge cotton balls, etc. Eventually we came up with a more practical solution. We created snowmen on the computer AND SAVED THEM. This way, we can look at our snowmen no matter what the weather is outside...10 degrees or 110 degrees! I was so happy to see how well the first graders did with this activity. But I have to admit, I was kind of excited about the idea of a robot snowman. Oh well.

Week 11 - Saving (Gingerbread House)

This week, the Baker first graders worked on another great creation...a gingerbread house. They worked very hard and made some amazing (and tasty looking) houses. After experimenting with candy canes, icing, lollipops, hard candies, and gingerbread men, the students were warned that they'd better save their work before I run around and eat them all up. Good thing they've been practicing how to save or they'd have no more houses...and I'd have a big bellyache. Crisis averted.

Week 10 - Saving and Drives

I  showed the first graders a picture of two elephants I drew on the computer about seven years ago...before some of them were even born! How was I able to show them this illustration after seven years? I SAVED IT!

I try to equate the drives and saving process to something more familiar to them...a house. I tell them that the computer is like a house with several different rooms (drives). Some of the rooms are off limits (like an office or their parents' room). Some are open for everyone to enjoy (like the family room). And some are just for them (like their own bedroom). To save a project, they must follow a series of five steps to get into their room and put that project into a drawer where it will be kept safe. They must follow these steps to keep the project safe (save it). Again, it's tough concept to understand, but they'll get there! Even if they don't have the memory of an elephant.