Five ideas for a unit

Option 1: The first option I was thinking about doing would be geared towards kindergarten. I would take the program frames and have them make a movie about colors. I would have them write down all the colors of the rainbow and have them come up with objects that are that color. They would use a new frame for each color and find the objects online. Then they would say a sentence for each page while it showed. This would have to be used as a whole unit because the students could explore a different color every day. Eventually they would have this really cool video. This would help them with their color associations and using technology to do it.

Option 2: The next idea I had was for second graders. The topic would be inventions. I would have the students come up with something they think could be made better. For example, making the toaster better. Each student would pick an invention, come up with a couple ideas on how they could make it better. They would have to research the history of this object on the computer. Using a paint program they could go on and draw what they feel it should look like or the changes they want made. If they couldn't use the paint program well, they could always resort to drawing the new product. This would help them see how hard it is to create a new invention and be creative in doing them.

Option 3: The third idea I had was for first graders to make a clay video about their favorite winter activity. Depending on how many students like the same activity this may work better in groups. For their specific activity they would create clay people, a clay setting and a paper background and then take digital pictures (many of them) to create a film. A story would eventually be added to the pictures and together as a group they would have made a video.

Option 4: This would be a unit for first grade. They would be doing a project on weather. Everyday there would be one student who would go online to look up the weather. The students would be keeping a blog online explaining what they weather website said, what it actually looked like outside, what they thought it would be the next day and what they wished it could be. This would go on for about a week, then the students would look back and see if there was any pattern to the weather or why it was constantly one kind of weather. This would help students become aware of weather and would be a good project to do at the end of a unit.

Option 5: This last option would be for second graders. This would be a writing project. Every class usually does a daily journal for writing. Instead of having them write in a journal all the time for two weeks they could type online. This could be put on the teachers website as a portfolio of children's writing. As second graders they could be given prompts, or topics to write about. The students could draw a picture of themselves and that could be on their own page so their parents can go online to see what their child has been writing about.