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Subjects

• Arts & Humanities
  --Language Arts
  --Visual Arts
• Social Studies
  --Holidays

Grade

• 6-8

Brief Description

Students think "outside the box" to identify unusual things they’re thankful for, and then use digital content (audio, images, movies...) to represent those things on a PowerPoint slide. Students’ slides are combined into a class slide show..

Objectives

• identify 6-8 atypical things they're grateful for.
• insert into a PowerPoint presentation digital content symbolizing those things.

Keywords

Thanksgiving, PowerPoint, slide show

Materials Needed

• Student access to the Internet
• Student access to PowerPoint

Lesson Plan

Prior to this lesson, students should have a basic knowledge of PowerPoint and Internet navigation and should be able to:

• create a new slide in PowerPoint.
• search for, find, and copy digital content (images, audio, and movies)
• cite online resources.

Begin the lesson by asking each student to name the top three things he or she is thankful for. Responses probably will include: family, friends, home, school, and so on. Make a list of the most common answers. Next, explain to students that their task is to think beyond those common answers and look for things in their lives they're grateful for that they don't give much thought to on most days. For example, a student might look forward to running with his dog every afternoon, fishing with her grandfather on every weekend, or taking a weekly piano lesson.

Help students think about the mundane, taken-for-granted areas of their lives. Give each student time to think of 6-10 such things and write them down.

Next, have students look on the Internet for images, audio clips, or short movies that symbolize the things on their lists. These can be direct representations -- a picture of a person walking a dog, or more figurative -- paw prints in the sand.

As students find digital content they want to use, have them copy and paste each item into a single slide on a PowerPoint slide. Remind students that they must size and arrange their 6-10 pieces of digital content so all fit on just one slide. (Note: If students are using audio or movies, those cannot just be pasted in; they must be saved to the Desktop and inserted. (Insert>Movies>Movies and Sounds).

When done, have students save their slides and send them to you or to a student helper. Use Insert>Slides from File to create a class presentation in PowerPoint that includes the slides made by all the students. Save the new slide show and show the presentation to the whole class. If no audio or movies were inserted, you might choose to put some soft music on and run the presentation in Kiosk mode (Slide Show>Custom Show) so it runs in a loop over and over again. That would be particularly relevant for use during an Open House or other parent event.

Assessment

• Identification of 6-10 atypical things to be grateful for.
• Creation of a single PowerPoint slide that includes representations of each of those things.

Lesson Plan Source

Education World

Submitted By

Lorrie Jackson

National Standards

FINE ARTS: Visual Arts
GRADES 5 - 8
NA-VA.5-8.3 Choosing and Evaluating A Range of Subject Matter, Symbols, and Ideas
NA-VA.5-8.6 Making Connections Between Visual Arts and Other Disciplines

LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.K-12.4 Communication Skills
NL-ENG.K-12.5 Communication Strategies
NL-ENG.K-12.6 Applying Knowledge
NL-ENG.K-12.7 Evaluating Data

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Copyright© 2005 Education World

11/08/2005