Google for First Grade

Hello all,

I have been learning about Google and all it has to offer for the past few months, but my use of it has been mainly for my own projects and assignments. Now that I am fairly familiar with Google, I am interested in ideas for implementing its use in my first grade classroom-keeping in mind that internet access in my classroom is limited to 5 student computers. Any ideas for simple "starter projects" would be greatly appreciated.

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Katie Dunbar on March 23, 2015 at 12:57pm

One thing that came to mind off the top of my head is to open a drawing document and have students add shapes and/or pictures to the document. You could start a document with some labels that they need to identify and illustrate or you can just verbally tell them which shapes to look for. You could also have them make pictures using basic shapes (there are many books you could read along with this).

You could also have a picture in a Google Doc. Kids can take turns at the computers adding words to describe the picture. This might be a good pre-writing activity.

I like using Google Forms for quizzes and surveys. You could make really easy ones to check for understanding on a unit you are doing. I would think you could do spelling tests on there as well, although you would then miss out on the handwriting piece that is important in first grade. At one point I have a little trivia thing set up where kids could go to the form when they have extra time to read the trivia question and answer it. Every once in a while I would check the answers and report back to the class. It never got off the ground because I'm not a classroom teacher so my kids didn't see it enough to get the hang of it. They love even simple surveys about favorite things. You could then use the data for math class.

You can make simple graphs in Sheets. I would recommend setting up the basic formatting and then sharing the Sheet with your students. They can then enter their own numbers and create the graph. I do this with 3rd graders and it is very popular. I'm not sure it is realistic to do it with first graders or not.

Good luck! Let me know if you try anything!

Permalink Reply by michele stone on March 29, 2015 at 10:03am

Katie...............thank you so much for all of your wonderful ideas! I think I might be able to start my kiddos off with a version of your first 2 ideas-the drawing doc or the picture doc. I could demonstrate adding words to the document while projecting it onto my smartboard. Then, when each child has a turn at the student pc's, I could just be close by to assist, while the rest of the class is involved in some other type of center rotation or activity-something that they could handle independently so that I could support the kids at the pc's. Great ideas-thanks so much!

RSS

Welcome to
Classroom 2.0

Sign Up
or Sign In