Fifth Grade
In the fifth grade computer class it's all about practicing keyboarding. One activity that I have the fifth graders do is to open up Microsoft Word. In Word I have them practicing their home row keys (ASDF JKL;) by typing a series of letters (aaa, ddd, fff, sss, etc.). This allows them to practice the proper placement of their fingers on the keys. I also have them type grade appropriate spelling words (sometimes making it a competition). I don't look for correctly spelled words, but I do look for proper finger placement.
Another activity I have them do is to go to a keyboarding website that is made by the BBC (the students call it the goat website because there is a dancing goat on one of the levels). This website has them go through stages and shows them proper finger placement on the home row keys. It's a great tool and lots of fun for them. They usually ask to go on it if they have any free time after their work is done. The website is listed below and is wonderful practice--even for me!!
Starting with the second grade, I have begun using a website called Growing with Technology. The website introduces Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) at an age appropriate level. It has grades K-5th with different activities for each program on Office and allows the students to be able to learn them.
Also I have begun using this website for internet scavenger hunts. The Growing with Technology website, along with another educational website I found, both give me ideas for scavenger hunts. The main purpose of these hunts is to familiarize the students with internet research. The scavenger hunts allow the students to be presented with a worksheet with different questions and when sent to a specific site, they are able to find the answer by reading and learning more about the topic. Just recently the fifth graders were sent on a trip across the USA. The scavenger hunt had them start in Pennsylvania and had them "travel" across the US to San Fransisco, California and then back to Washington D.C. They were given a worksheet with questions pertaining to different cities across the US and sent to different websites to look for the answers. The website below is the website that has links to these sites.
The students had a lot of fun learning about places around the US. Each website took them somewhere new and at the end we found out the mileage from San Fransisco to Washington D.C. (which is 2,821.26 miles!) by using Google maps. It was a very educational experience and I believe the fifth graders got a lot out of it!
This week we...
March 9-13
HAVE A WONDERFUL AND SAFE SPRING BREAK!!!!!
March 2-6
*We did bbc typing for practice and also took 3 three minute typing tests. The best score was recorded.
*We also did an internet scavenger hunt. March is Women's History Month so we went to the website listed below and answered questions on a worksheet that I handed out about different influential women throughout history. It was alot of fun and we also learned!!
Women Who Left Their "Stamps" on History
February 23-27
*We continued our keyboarding practice on the bbc website and also took 3 two minute typing tests. The best score was recorded out of those three.
*We also did a scavenger hunt!! I gave the students a worksheet with 17 of the US Presidents on it along with 17 different events that happened during their presidencies. I sent them to a corresponding website with information about all of our Presidents on it and asked them to read about each president listed on the worksheet and match an event with one of the presidents. Then I had them choose a president on the worksheet list and discover more about them. I had them write down facts including birth date, death date, political party, and other governmental positions that they had besides being the president. It was a lot of fun and very educational!
February 16-20
*Learned about databases!! We learned what a database was through the Growing with Technology website. We were given a database with cities and a listing of things such as a building, it's height, how many floors it has, etc. There were a series of directions that we were given about rearranging the database into two new databases (one by arranging it by cities and the second by the year the building was built). The databases were a little difficult for the classes, so we only got through to question #5. We will continue to slowly go through it and discuss it next week. Part of the problem is listening, but we are handling it and I think they figured out if they just listened to the directions they would be able to understand it. So we are working on it!! 
*We also continued to work on our keyboarding on the bbc typing website and made sure we were using proper finger placement.