Grade Level: 6,7,8

Goals:

*The students will use their knowledge of a specific port city to create a crossword puzzle.

*The students will learn how to use a specific computer program and increase their computer proficiency.

Materials:

*Paper *Computers (if possible)

*Rulers

Content Areas:

*Social Studies

*Language Arts

Concepts:

*Computer skills

Procedure:

1. The teacher will talk to students about the different kinds of word games that they have seen or played (ex: crossword puzzles, word finds, etc.)

2. The teacher will talk to students about how a crossword puzzle works.

--given spaces to fill in that are numbered

--given definitions/clues for the words that need to be found

--the numbers on the clues match the numbers of the words that need to be found

3. He/she will explain to students that they will be creating a crossword puzzle based on the city that they are doing their research on.

4. The teacher will show the students a sample crossword puzzle

5. The students will then create a crossword puzzle of their own with their project group.

6. The students will be given time to work on the puzzles and tell them they should be finished by the day of their presentation. The teacher might suggest that the students pass out the crossword puzzle\to their classmates after they finish their final group presentations.

Evaluation: Students will be evaluated based on a checklist. See notes on checklist.

Approximate Time: 1 hour

Extensions:

*Students could also create other tools in which to test their classmates knowledge of their city. For example: Jeopardy game, "Around the World", "Wheel of Fortune" Puzzles, etc.

Resources: Krissy Lukens, AV/Computer Coordinator at Parkview Middle School

-Students can also use the books they have available to them for their group projects on the six port cities.

Teacher's Note: Remember that the teacher should set the criteria for the checklist so the students know what they need for a successful performance on this activity. For example: 6 checks equals an A, etc. Also, we have designed this lesson in a way that could allow for the creation of the crossword puzzles to be done with paper and pencil or on the computer. There is a program that is created for Macintosh computers called Word Cross 2.0. This would be a great way to integrate technology into this lesson if it is available to you. Otherwise, the old fashioned paper and pencil creation will be just fine.

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