Mrs. Ratchford’s class at Springfield Park learned how to create a great Pages document. First, the students visited http://www.starfall.com/n/holiday/halloween/play.htm?f. On this site, the students can select a pumpkin from the virtual pumpkin patch. Then they can select shapes for the eyes, nose, and mouth on the pumpkin. When the pumpkin is completed, it will dance in the pumpkin patch. THe 2nd grade students took a screen shot of their completed pumpkin by holding down Control + Apple + Shift+ 4. This gave them a selecting tool that allowed them to select the picture of their pumpkin and copy it. Next we opened up a blank Pages document, and held down Apple + V to paste the picture of the pumpkin at the top of the page. Then we added a text box to the document, so that the students could do some creative writing about fall, halloween, pumpkins, etc. I was pleased to see a variety of different stories and some excellent typing skills.

The students did a great job with this activity because the topic was broad and they had the option to choose what they wanted to write about, as long as they could tie it in with the pumpkin picture at the top of their page. I saw a lot of very creative stories on many different topics. We let the students type without worrying too much about editing. Now Mrs. Ratchford has a writing sample for each of her students that she can pull up during a writing conference and digitally work on editing with her students.