1st Grade Famous Americans
First graders at Davis Elementary have been learning about famous Americans including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington Carver, and Benjamin Franklin (SOL1.2). Today students in Ms. Gerrard’s class used ABCYa! Storymaker to draw and write about a famous American of their choice. This easy-to-use webtool is a great way to give your younger students an opportunity to practice drawing and writing with a computer. First we logged into Google classroom where I posted the link. Once students opened the website, they used the paint bucket tool to fill the background with their favorite color. Then we looked at pictures of the famous Americans to be sure we painted them correctly. We used the paint brush tool to draw a circle for the face and filled it in with the paint bucket tool. I showed them how to use the roller brush to paint two white eyes. Then they added pupils, a mouth, and hair with the paint brush tool. We kept the drawings simple so they could start writing their sentences. To type, students click the “Aa” button on the right side. The paper is similar to the lined paper they use in class and the font is developmentally appropriate. I explained how to use shift to make capital letters and wrote a word bank on the board for them to use. The students typed two complete sentences about their famous American, then we clicked the download button. Ms. Gerrard and I helped them upload their files to Google classroom so everyone could see and read them. You can take a look at them here.