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Subjects

• Arts & Humanities
  --Language Arts
• Social Studies
  --Holidays

Grade

• 3-5

Brief Description

Using Excel, students answer questions to create a silly, spooky, fill-in-the-blanks story.

Objectives

• navigate a simple spreadsheet.
• develop their creativity.
• have fun.

Keywords

Halloween, Excel, creativity

Materials Needed

• computer access
• Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet program.
• Spooky Story template.

Lesson Plan

You might want to use this lesson at the end of the day, as a center activity for unwinding, or as a take-home assignment. Explain that everyone is going to make a silly, spooky story by answering a few questions. Then, provide students with the following instructions:

Note: Before beginning this lesson, be sure to save the Spooky Story template on the network, each student's computer, a disk, or in another place that's accessible to all students.

• Open Microsoft Excel.
• Open the Spooky Story template. Go to File>Save As and save the template as an Excel worksheet. The file name should include your name, the words "spooky story," and the suffix .xls. (Example: MarySpookyStory.xls)
• Read each question or command, and answer each in the blank to right. (If you can't see the questions, move the scrollbar at the bottom of the spreadsheet all the way to the left.)
• Scroll right to page 2 and highlight all the cells on that page (G1 through O27).
• Click the arrow to the right of the font icon -- a letter A with a line under it -- in the Formatting toolbar and choose black ink. (If you can't see the font icon, click View>Toolbars>Formatting to view the Formatting toolbar.)

Remind students to widen a column if they cannot see an entire answer. To widen a column, double-click the small line between the letters at the top of two columns. (For example, to widen column B, double-click the line between the letters B and C.)

This lesson can be used simply as a fun review of Excel navigation skills, or extended as students create their own Adlib stories. See the Education World techtorial Create an Adlib Story with Excel for more information.

Assessment

• their completed worksheet; and
• their ability to follow directions, based on teacher observation.

Lesson Plan Source

Education World

Submitted By

Lorrie Jackson

National Standards

LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.K-12.12 Applying Language Skills

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