Mission Patches and Time Zone Experiences

The fourth and fifth graders are busily working on their projects following the surveys.

Fourth Grade Mission Patches
I am so much happier with the mission patches the fourth graders are creating this year. In previous years, I didn't give them a planning sheet and it showed in their work. We did not vote on and analyze the NASA images in previous years.

This week we prepared to finish the project and I'm adding one new final twist to it. We exported the images as JPEGs from KidPix. It gave us a chance to talk about the word "export" (as in exporting apples to another country) and how it relates to computers. We will bring them into Word next week. In Word, they will have to describe why they included the different elements on their patch. I will be hanging up all the patches in the hallway and they will vote on their favorite classmate created image. This will be the first time they export an image from KidPix to use in Word.

Fifth Grade Time Zone Experiences
The fifth grade spent some time reading what the students in New York, Australia, and England have typed into the wiki. During the week, they found their three assigned time periods to document. Last week, they brought their class schedule to the computer lab. We have the results from the sleeping and waking survey, too. This should give them some data to include in their time of day chart.

Once that is complete, we can update the Time Zone Experiences wiki and begin learning how all the digital cameras work. I have five digital cameras and twenty-two students. If I pair them up, I can have two different teams working on two different projects. While some students are working with the cameras, I will have the other students learning to import the photos and label them. I will need one more small project to keep everyone occupied. They will be using the camera to document different time periods in the school day for the Time Zone Experiences wiki.