Fifth graders at Varina Elementary have been learning about solving multistep word problems (SOL5.4) and identifying the point of view of an author (SOL5.5f). Since those were two areas of need identified on the recent benchmark tests, I wanted to focus on those skills as well as teach the students how to create Google slideshows. So today in Ms. Parker’s class we created word problems that involved identifying the point of view. First we reviewed point of view. I provided a few examples of situations where the author is feeling strong positive or negative emotions, and we discussed the clues. Then I instructed the students to think of a multistep word problem involving an emotional situation. I gave them a blank Google slideshow template in Google classroom and taught them how to choose a theme, add text, change the font, size, and color, and add a picture. We wrote a multistep word problem for our classmates to solve on one slide, then we added another slide for them to identify our point of view. The last step was to add transitions between the slides. Finally we published our slideshows and copied the links to Google classroom so we could solve each others’ problems. You can take a look at their slideshows here. I taught the same lesson with a couple of classes at Holladay the next day, and you can see those here.
