NO NEED TO BE PUZZLED ABOUT ME

Each student will be asked to fill out a worksheet; they will be writing an acrostic poem about someone else in the class. The worksheet will help to write their poem. Also, during the course of this project, the students will be using the digital camera, importing the photo onto a document, and turning the photo into a watermark--it is good to show an example to the students.

Day 1: To start the lesson, each student will be given a sheet entitled "No need to be puzzled about me." On the sheet there are questions, such as: name, birthday, hair color, eye color, if they have any brothers and sisters? (If so, what are their names and ages?), favorite hobbies, favorite TV show, favorite movie, favorite food, favorite color, favorite music group/singer, favorite school subject, favorite season, what they are going to be when the grow up, and the funniest thing that ever happened to them.

Day 2:
After the sheet is filled out, I take the students to the following website to fully help them understand what an acrostic poem is: www.readwritethink.org/materials/acrostic

Day 3: Each student will receive another paper (not their own worksheet previously filled out). First go into MS Word, save the file, and starting typing the person's first and last name going down vertically. The students are now going to "try" and come up with a sentence for each letter. Using the worksheet will help them get to know who they are writing about.

Day 4: Continuation of working the poem.
Show the students how to operate the digital camera. As the students are working, call up a student and who they are writing about to take their picture with the digital camera (they love using the camera).

Day 5: In this lesson, you can go over how to bold the first letter of the name going down, so that the person's name stands out. Also, you should teach how to change the font, font size and color at this time. (Make sure their writing is done because if it isn't they can get lost changing their fonts, etc.)

Day 6: Today, is the day to import the picture of the student they are writing about and turn the picture into a watermark, making it the background. Once you are through with the watermark, have students continue typing the poem and changing the fonts, etc.

Day 7: This should be a "touch up" day. Review or teach the students how to use the spell check and the thesaurus.

Remember to have your students save at the end of each class and print when they are done.

Good luck! This is a great project for the beginning of the year and a great way to make a new friend.