Our focus this year will be spreadsheet and word processing skills. I have two competitions planned for the year. I think they enjoy the lessons more when they are playing a game at the same time! Students in grades 5-8 will be competing with each other as toy store managers. Each student will be creating/editing their own ledger spreadsheet to manage their product line and financial status. We will be using a web site called www.stixy.com (its an online bulletin board) to post links to each store (one page per student) where they will load images of their toys, retail prices, and quantity available. Once a month, students will update their web page and ledger file. This leads me to the second competition. Students in grades 3-8 will compete as shoppers! I have designed a deck of Consumer Cards that gives each student a set amount of money and 10 items to purchase. Students will earn points if they can purchase all 10 items in the alotted time, and if they purchase an item at its lowest price. The only store they cannot shop in is the one they are managing. I hope they enjoy these lessons. It will be a challenge for me to keep up with this project. In addition to the "game" aspect, we will be using Word to write letters explaining our business strategy to a fictitious store owner, and we will also spend time researching and writing about actual trends in the toy industry.
Grades K-8 will also continue working on keyboarding skills and practicing math flash cards.
Grades K-2 will be learning about spreadsheets using a program called Scholastic Keys: MaxCount. This program interfaces with Microsoft Office 2003. We will be completing a few mystery pictures. Students will also be using Scholastic Keys: MaxWrite to write and edit a story about some classroom toys.
