Week of March 3, 2008

This is butterfly week! The second graders are learning about butterflies in science. The teacher and I planned some computer activities both to help the students learn about butterflies and develop some new computer skills. We used the mobile lab. These students had not used the laptops here at school before, so it was a very exciting experience for them.
In order to make things a little easier for them, I created templates for their projects and put them on my Webpage. They could just go to the page and download the template to their computer.
The first time we met, the students logged into NetTrekker and researched their favorite animals. Then they created an animal riddle using facts about the animal and inserted a picture. For the next project, the students learned about the differences between moths and butterflies and added their comparisions to a Double Bubble Map. Using NetTrekker, the students also researched the body parts of a butterfly, the butterfly life cycle, and learned interesting facts about butterflies. Then they inputted the information into a PowerPoint template.
We worked on these projects during conference week so the teacher had an opportunity to share the work with the teachers. When we came back from school after our Spring break, the students were anxious to use NetTrekker again in the computer lab and use the skills they had developed!