Introducing MW @.0

[mwforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Gary McCallister)]

I am not a full time elementary school teacher.  I teach biology in college.  
But I have been volunteering off and on for a few years in thrid grade at a 
local elementary school.  What has seemed to work well is to meet the class 
about thirty minutes before lunch.  I introduce a topic and we talk about it.  
For example, the first session I often play a game where they blindfold me and 
then give me verbal instructions about how to get about the room.  I 
persoanlly mess up their imprecise instructions (like if the say turn left I 
turn all the way around to my left).  W sometime let others try and play with 
this awhile.  It introduces the idea of telling other people (or turtles) how 
to operate in space with commands like right, left, forward and back, bit also 
the necessity to include a number: turn left 1/4 turn, forward three steps, 
etc.  Now they are ready for fd, bk, rt, lt.
     We usually meet just before lunch and keep it to about 30 min.  After 
lunch they come back and we go to the computer room where I tell them 2 or 3 
commands and they try things with them for an hour.  We usually can only meet 
once a week so we don't try to do projects and save anything for many weeks.  
(Aside: I find the whole saveing thing far more difficult to explain and get 
them to use correctly than any of the Logo.)
     Under our time frame of many weeks, they have commands for fd, bk, pu, 
pd, rt, lt, cg, home, repeat, sqaure brackets, procedures page, shapes, 
animation, buttons, etc.  Then we do the save stuff and finally they do some 
one day projects.  It is clear until the second semester that we ask them to 
choose and work on a larger project.  As I said, story books about their 
Christmnas vacation are popular.

>>> lrpacini@xxxxxxxxx 08/30/02 03:49PM >>>
Gary, I am dealing with 4th, 5th and 6th graders.

Lauren

--- Gary McCallister <mccallis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 1.  How old are your students?  That makes a big
> difference.  (If they don't know the alphabet they
> can't use the keyboard very well, etc.)  All
> students need to have a few primitives available to
> get started.  Things like fd, bk, pu, pd, rt, lt
> etc. are pretty necessary.  I personaly teach quite
> a few more primitives and give them instructor
> designed projects for awhile before asking them to
> create their own projects. =20
> 2.   There is a book from terrapin called 101 Ideas
> for Logo that presents a bunch of graded projects
> that are good to select from.
> 3.  Public school children in about the thrid grade
> do well in MW doing animated story books.
>=20
> >>> lrpacini@xxxxxxxxx 08/30/02 12:50PM >>>
> How good it is to see that there is life in turtle
> land! Perhaps now would be a good opportunity to
> repost my prior question... but to open the
> parameters
> a bit.
>=20
> I am new to MW and am looking for some basic starter
> project suggestions for grades 4-6. Something that
> will light the imaginative fires of the students as
> well as their teachers.
>=20
> What is the best way to present MW as a brand new
> tool. I mentioned that I am in a Montessori school,
> and I suspect that may have been responsible for the
> lack of suggestions, but it is important that MW get
> a
> good launch in order to getpast the skeptics!!
>=20
> Suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!
>=20
> Lauren
>=20
>=20
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