2nd grade

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Home : 2003 : January : 28

2nd grade
By sj

I have my students do a "draw with me" zoo animal. As we draw, I use and ask them to use many positional words, talk about what we already know, basic pre-write things. Then I have them watch (at first, it was just a monitor,
but now I have a viewer yipeee!) as I click through web sites and info on the animal. As we "research", they write notes on their drawing. If the info concerns what the animal eats, for example, they draw a line to the mouth and list his foods. General info they write beside bullets under the animal's name at the top of the page. I bookmark the animal info and put all of the hippo

sites together in a folder. During their "centers" time, they can go back to that computer and open the folder to see the site and read more info. After they've taken their notes, we make a writing plan--either an outline for an information paratraph (circle the three parts of your notes that had the most interesting or most info, for your I, II , II--which become the supporting detail sentences of the paragraph)OR a story plan (with character, setting, etc...) They compose as much as they can with pencil and paper prior to our computer lab day, when they use computer word-processor to finish and proof with spell-check, etc. They save their work to a floppy disc. I grade directly on the piece of work on their floppy and then print their composition, along with my comments, for them to take home and sometimes an extra for their folder. I think my students are getting the idea of how to do research and take notes--something that I think too often is assumed rather than taught. Anyway, that's one way I use technology in my classroom. Hope it helps.