Well you know how things go and things always change, well I have changed my mind! Instead of typing our personal narratives (we were not ready for that yet in our writing) we started typing our 100 No Excuse Words. The kids love it. I taught them how to make a grid on their paper with multiple rows and columns. I also taught them how to create a header for the top of their paper. We are printing these out and turning them into me at first and then I will give them back so that they can use them. As third graders, they needed a lot of help with some of these words so this not only gives them practice with the words, but also a chance to make them personal and to use some different applications that Microsoft Word has to offer. Some of the kids I found out are a lot faster typist then even myself. It is fun to watch the kids actually engage in spelling on the computer, its sad that we only have 30 minutes in the computer lab though.
In addition, for Halloween yesterday, instead of carving real pumpkins in class we carved virtual pumpkins on the SMART Board. I loved it and so did my students. Here it is..be careful it is addictive.
http://www.cubpack81.com/images/carve_pumpkin.swf