Lesson+Plans+and+Activities

This page is to upload or link to lesson plans and activities, when adding to this page please cite the source or author of the document From Nancy Jacobson, Technology Teacher Grades 5 & 6, Frazee-Vergas Elementary School:

__Bridge to Nature Through Photography & Poetry __ After spending 1.5 fifty minute periods introducing 5th & 6th grade students to the cameras and basic photography, they ventured out to the front lawn of our school building in pairs. Each student took up to 5 photos. I had 5 small bendable tripods for them to experiment with. The sixth graders downloaded their own photos, while I did it for the 5th graders to save time.

The next day the 5th graders took a field trip to Itasca State Park, where I offered digital photography Bridge to Nature as one of the 4 actvities students would be rotating to. In 30 min. with few directions, other than to think outside the box and keep in mind the "Sense of Wonder" in nature, the students took their photos. Another staff member and I downloaded due to time constraints. The following day students opened their folders to view the photos I had uploaded into each of their folders. They were directed to choose their most favorite photo and put it in a special folder. The photo had to be of nature and could not be edited in any way other than to crop or adjust the brightness. Next I directed them to a site, ETTC's Instant Poetry Forms, [], where they selected the form and then created a poem to complement their photo and vice versa. The end product will be a slide created by each student with their photo and poem. It will run as a slideshow continuously during parent-teacher conferences. I also want them to take the same photo and upload it to FotoFlexer, [|www.fotoflexer.com]. It is entirely up to them how to edit their photo. It can then be pasted to another slide that follows their original. The 6th graders will use photos they took out on the front lawn for a similar project.

In response to the problem I have at our school relating to printing in color, I purchased an annual print plan for some $30+ on Shutterfly.com. Cost of a 4x6 is $0.10. Students can pay me and I will keep track. We may also create a photo book with student photos only.



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__From Rashelle Weicherding, Echo Charter School:__ Last week in English class with the 7th and 8th grade students, we read The Marginal World by Rachel Carson which is a chapter from her book The Edge of the Sea. It has lots of great sensory words to describe the edge of the sea and how the tides hide different creatures. Then we went on a "muddy" nature walk where the students had to pick a spot and use their senses and write what they felt at that time, being that we just had the one digital camera, I carried it from student to student and then let them take a picture of the spot they were focusing on. We then came back into the classroom, printed the pictures and they each typed up a paper using lots of descriptive words. Some of the students did an excellent job and many of them wanted to do it again, but I said when it was a little nicer outside :) I did get the initial idea from a core knowledge lesson plan that was written by Donna Seekamp from Aurora, Colorado. Our 7th and 8th grade curriculum is based off of the Core Knowledge and many Core Knowledge schools share their lesson ideas with each other!





From Cinda Current, 3rd grade teacher at Riverview Elementary in Farmington, MN: All of the 3rd graders, 130 of them, took pictures outside. Then they had to choose their favorite far away picture and their favorite up close picture. We then practiced the skills we had been learning about dialogue and point of view. The students wrote dialogue for the far away picture from the point of view of themselves. ("Look at that beautiful, tall, oak tree!" shouted Ben.). Then they wrote dialogue for the up close picture from the point of view of what was in the picture. ("I have lovely, pink, curly petals," whispered the tulip.) Then our tech specialist helped the teachers show the kids how to put their pictures and dialogue on a template and we made a class slide show. It is great!!