Off and Running and Where I'm From

What a crazy two weeks it has been, but a good crazy! Lots of orientations (I have almost all the grades done, first grade is this week and Kindergarten next week) and lots of kids checking out books already!

I am teaching a fifth grade special this year. I am splitting the teaching with our technology teacher and I have the first five rotations. The first rotation (we run on a six day schedule) we did my media center orientation (I thought since I had them in here I would get it out of the way.) The second rotation I decided to start a project using our state database system, Galileo. I decided to adapt the lesson plan, Where I'm from in Galileo for my students. Basically, the lesson starts off with us discussing the poem by George Ella Lyon, Where I'm From. Then I introduce them to the Galileo databases and I tell them that we are going to use these databases to find information on the place where we live now and we are going to create a Where I'm From poem and PowerPoint presentation on what we have found in the databases about our town. I show them a sample of a Where I'm from in Galileo PowerPoint (provided in the link above) and I also created a Where I'm From PowerPoint (but I did not use Galileo to find images since I am not from Georgia).

I am planning on this being a 3-4 class project. The first class period I spent explaining the project and showing them examples and then showing them how to save images off the database to their home drives on our server. The next class period will be spent gathering the images for their PowerPoint and writing their poem (the link above also includes a template for their poem). The third and fourth class will be spent creating their PowerPoint.

So far, the biggest obstacle - the kids do not know how to spell the name of the town they live in -Lawrenceville. Now, I can understand if they had just moved to the area, but many of these kids have lived here most of their lives. This was an obstacle I wasn't planning on with fifth graders!

Here is my Where I'm from PowerPoint, hopefully I will be able to share some of my students in a few weeks.

Where I'm From- Northboro

View more presentations from Kathy Schmidt.