Friends in the Community

At the beginning of the school year, it is important to build the classroom community. Everyday, a student is selcted as our "Friend of the Day". This person is the classroom helper for the day. During the beginning weeks of school, each Friend of the Day is interviewed by his/her classmates. We use the computer to help us create a graphic organizer using Inspiration, and later in the year Kidspiration. The name of the Friend of the Day is the main idea of the graphic organizer. The classmates then come up with questions that they want to ask the Friend of the Day. The answers to those questions are then put into the graphic organizer. The students have now learned about the main idea and how to organize their thoughts.

Next, we used the ideas from our interview and graphic organizer to create a PowerPoint show about the "Friend of the Day". This activity modeled how to insert text boxes, format text, create a new page, and insert and format digital photos.

In order to share this experience, and make it more interactive, we used an LCD projector, in connection with our Smart Board. The students are able to touch the board to manipulate the programs.

We then took this experience to the computer lab. With the "Com-Web", we were able to transmit what we were doing on the teacher station to the screens of the student computers. This gave them the feeling that they were actually taking part in creating the graphic organizer and the PowerPoint presentation. Once they felt confident, we let the students create their own webs. At Thanksgiving, the students created their own webs to describe what they are thankful for.