Archive for February 15th, 2011
Year2: SlideShow using PowerPoint
I must admit that when it was decided to use MS PowerPoint for the Year 2, I was a bit sceptical. PPT!?! for Yr2! Surely this programme is too complicated for 6 year olds. I myself have always done PowerPoint with Yr5 pupils upwards.
But once I got down to actually exploring the possibilities of PPT for young children, I realised that we are not going to teach the application to the children but we are going to introduce them to what a slideshow is and how slideshows (in this case PowerPoint presentations) can be used to demonstrate their work in a more interesting and attractive manner.
During the first session I show the children some examples of simple SlideShows and explain to them that even they can create similar SlideShows with pictures they can choose themselves. I open MS PowerPoint and explain to the children that they are seeing an empty slide on which we can insert pictures, titles (using Wordart) and phrases (using the Text Box). At this stage the pupils have to be shown the following:
- To insert a new slide – and to click on the blank slide (from the Task Pane on the right)
- To insert … Picture … Clip Art. Here we also have to show the children where they have to type in the word they are searching for.
- To click on WordArt (from the toolbar at the bottom) to include a title to the slide.
- To click on Text Box (from the toolbar at the bottom) to type in a simple phrase or sentence. May I point out that the teacher would need to increase the font size to at least 24pt or 28pt.
Just as I suggested for KidPix in Yr1, the theme chosen for the project should ideally be taken from the syllabus.
If the topic ‘Animals’ is chosen, it can be divided into sub-topics such as ‘wild animals’, ‘farm animals’, ‘pets’, ‘sea creatures’, etc. The pupils can be divided into groups of three and each group has to create a slideshow on one of sub-topics. The WordArt feature can be used to insert the name of the animal and the TextBox is then used to type in a phrase. The children will probably type in ‘This is a …. ‘ on each slide. So I suggested each group to take different aspects of the animals. For example one group can type in the Animal sounds under each animal, another group can take the Animal Homes, and another: Animal and their young. In this way, all the slideshows will be varied.
The topic ‘Food’ can be divided into: Fruit, Vegetables, Diary products, Sweets, examples of food we should not eat too much from, etc.
My House. This is another topic familiar to the Yr2 year group. Once again, each group of pupils can take a different room in the house and create slideshows with the different furniture one can find in every room, or else with the different things we do in each room.
Other Topics:
· Weather
· The 4 Seasons
· The colours or ‘Il-kuluri’
Once all the different slideshows are created, the teacher saves them on a pendrive, then all the slideshows can be saved as one by using the feature: Insert – Slides form File
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The eTeacher 