Drew's Powerpoint Presentation!!

On Thursday, February 26th, Drew's class presented their PowerPoint presentations. Each student in his class selected an animal and researched that animal using the Internet and books from the library. His teacher, with the help of our school's Literacy Coach, librarian, and other teachers, then taught each student how to make his/her own PowerPoint to present to the class and parents. Drew selected the vampire bat as his animal. Is anyone surprised by this? His dad and I were not surprised in the least! Completing the PowerPoint and giving the presentation counted as two test grades, and his teacher said the students could earn extra credit by dressing up as his/her animal on presentation day. Drew loved having the opportunity to dress up as a bat, so he and his daddy went to Walmart to look for something he could use as wings (cape). We knew Drew would wear a black shirt on the day of the presentation and he made bat ears using a sentence strip from my classroom and construction paper, but he was determined to have a cape. He and Craig found some black fabric and they worked the night before to fix it to look like bat wings. Drew even decided to wear his vampire teeth on the day of the presentation.

I was surprised when I entered Drew's classroom to watch the presentations (well some of them because I had to get back to my own classroom), to see that Drew would be presenting first. They had been practicing and Drew had never mentioned the first thing about presenting first. Drew did a fantastic job of presenting and he even made everyone laugh. He began the presentation with those fake teeth in, but after the first sentence he said "mom, do you want me to take these out?" Everyone laughed and Drew smiled when I said "yes, I think that would be a good idea". I was so proud of Drew and all of his classmates (6 of which I had in my kindergarten class) for their hard work on this project. It amazes me that second graders can create their own PowerPoints. It just goes to show - you expect great things from your students and they will meet those expectations!! We are so glad that Drew will get to have Mrs. Turner again next year because she will be "looping" up to third grade with her whole class!!