Lesson Four Thoughts....

I need to start off by saying that I love PowerPoint presentations! It is such a great way to present information to people of all ages, not just my elementary school students.

The PowerPoint I used this past week was slightly different than those I have used during the rest of the school year. Instead of presenting a specific idea, topic, or lesson I used PowerPoint this week to go over the end of the year events with my 5th graders. We do three special things with our kids; 5th Grade Awards Night, a 5th Grade Lock-In, and a 5th Grade Luncheon. My PowerPoint introduced each event and the expectations held with it.

The most "impressive" item in my PowerPoint were the graphics and photographs I used. Instead of just listing information for the students to read, I had taken pictures to go along with the ideas I was trying to get across. For example, when I wanted to talk about what my students should and should not wear to Awards Night I had pictures of students dressed appropriately, and students dressed inappropriately. While my kids thought these pictures were really funny, it helped for the idea to stick in their minds.

If I could go back and change anything it would be the length of the presentation. When using PowerPoint in class I always try to limit the number of slides I use. Unfortunately since I had so much to cover with this one presentation it went a little long and I lost some of them toward the end. They tried their best to stay with me, but in the end they couldn't help it.

My kids loved the presentation. The pictures I used made them laugh, and it really made the idea of "graduating" 5th Grade more real for a lot of them. There were a lot of nerves running through our school this week, and I am confident this presentation helped to calm some of my girls down.

In the future I definitely plan on using PowerPoint even more. I want to develop a Jeopardy style game to play to review for testing, and I want the kids to become more familiar with PowerPoint and all of its bells and whistles. They like looking at Power Points so I want them to like creating them themselves.