TIPS Volume 3, No. 6
February, 2003

     Grade Level Key 
     Suitable for elementary school= Elem, Suitable for middle school= Middle
     Suitable for high school= High, General interest= Teachers

Editor: Jeffrey L. Jones,
District Tech Resource Teacher
jjones@fayette.k12.ky.us
This website is intended for the instructional use of students and staff of Fayette County Public Schools.

TIPS Into the Classroom
Suitable for elementary school Suitable for middle school Shopping Spree - Second Grade at Meadowthorpe Elementary
Suitable for middle school Bryan Station Fort Project - Bryan Station Middle

 

Shopping Spree! - Meadowthorpe Elementary

Shopping spreadsheetThis lesson is great for the study of economics, as well as math. Although it was used with second-graders, it is completely scalable for use with much older students - the older, the more they might be required to generate their own spreadsheet, or select data online! For younger students, we created a spreadsheet which allowed students to simply enter the names and prices of products, and it automatically did all the math.

Students selected several items they wanted to buy and were assigned the responsibility to find the cost of each item at several local stores. Then, using digital display, the prices and items were entered into the spreadsheet. The lesson included a discussion of the relative merits of buying everything in one place versus driving to different stores to get the cheapest price for each item.

Complete lesson plans are online (including the Excel spreadsheet template) at Mr. Johnson's TRT Website.

Submitted by Mike Johnson
Mike Johnson
Bryan Station Fort Project

Click here to view the PowerPoint online

From Alan Ford, Family Resource Center, Bryan Station Traditional Middle Schools:

"This project initially started out as a plan for Service-Learning. Through Service-Learning students are actively engaged in learning and providing a service within their communities. The way we got this program off the ground is using our Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP). I worked with a core group of STLP students on research about the history of the Bryan's Station Fort. We met after school and in large and small groups to get ready for the Region 5 STLP Conference. Our students did Internet research on historical accounts of Bryan Station. We also looked into the descendants of the fort and tracked some to present day. One individual is actively emailing the school and supporting our information gathering. The STLP worked on brochures and PowerPoint presentations. We grouped these projects together and designed a final PowerPoint that would be displayed at conference and used in education of future Service-Learning projects concerning the Fort. We took one site visit in which digital photographs were taken for use in the PowerPoint presentation.

"Our next activity included our 6th grade Read 180 classes. The Daughters of American Revolution (DAR) were invited as guests to help tell the story along with the PowerPoint. Our students will do research on Genealogy with the aid of Dick Forston and Melissa Brewer. Next students will utilize this research to locate their own family tree back to the Revolutionary time period. They will also apply this knowledge to help investigate descendents of Bryan Station to present day. Our plan is to continually add information that our students find to our web page. Service will come in the form of students presenting material to feeder elementary schools, the local DAR chapter meetings, and in school orientations. We will also use this site for science experiments related to water quality and add this information to future presentations. Students in the Read 180 class wrote journal entries related to bravery and the time period."

 

 

Submitted by Dick Forston
Dick Forston