March/April STEM

I can’t believe the school year is more than half done. I have been so impressed with the work that all of the children in first through fifth have done with their PowerPoint presentations. I am also so proud of the kindergarteners and how they have learned so quickly to use the mouse. With all that being said, there is much more work to be done.

Kindergarten will continue to work on their mouse and keyboarding skills. They are practicing by going to abcya.com and using the programs Cup Stack Typing and Typing Rocket Jr. They will also begin to use Scratch Jr. in order to begin to develop their coding skills.

The first graders will be finishing their PowerPoint presentations on their favorite color. Each slide show will have five slides with three pictures of clip art, slide transitions, and at least one animation on each slide. In March, the first graders will begin learning how to use Scratch. They will be able to create a background, choose character sprites, and develop code to make the characters have speech. Please have the first graders practice typing at home in order to increase their familiarity with the keyboard. Have them go to ABCYA.com, 2^nd grade, then skills. They know what to do after that. Once a week practice is fine.

Second grade is finishing their PowerPoint project on Colors of the Rainbow. They have created an eight- page slide show with each slide representing a color of the rainbow. They have inserted clip art, slide transitions, at least two animations per slide, sound and a design. In March, they will begin to use Scratch to create a story. The will use code to create backgrounds, characters interacting with each other, and movement. In typing, the children have been using ABCYA.com, but they are going to switch to a program called Power Typing. This program will give you a words-per-minute and errors-per-minute breakdown at the end of every lesson. To practice this at home go to https://powertyping.com/qwerty/qwertyL.html.

Third Graders are finishing their wonderful PowerPoint presentations about themselves. They have created seven-page presentations including, slide transitions, animations of both words and clip art, slide designs, and rehearsal timings. They will begin using Scratch in the beginning of March. They will be creating their own Choose Your Own Adventures Story. They will include multiple sprites and backgrounds, movement, and speech. They have also been practicing their typing skills using https://powertyping.com/qwerty/qwertyL.html . The children have just finished lessons 1 and 2. They will start working on lesson 3 in March.

Fourth and fifth grade have been completing one of my all-time favorite projects which is creating an IPad on PowerPoint. All of the students have learned how to hyperlink both words and pictures to their favorite websites. They have included slide transitions, animations, and shapes to their slide shows. We have also been learning how to code Dash robots to quietly (or not quietly in some instances) move down the halls. Fourth and fifth grade students will now move on to Scratch where they will bring their social studies curriculum to life using animations and broadcasting. Just like the third graders, they have also been practicing their typing skills using https://powertyping.com/qwerty/qwertyL.html . The children have just finished lessons 1 and 2. They will start working on lesson 3 in March.

If you have any questions or wish to meet with me, please contact me at sdavid2@schools.nyc.gov.