Instructional Objectives: Students will use the Internet to research a United States president. They will download a portrait of the president and make a watercolor painting of the president. The students will then use the information and painting to create a multimedia presentation.

Writing

California Standard 1.4 Research and Technology: Create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features.

Time Required: Four or five, forty-five minute periods

Advance preparation and prerequisite knowledge and skills: Students should be able to access the Internet, use a search engine such as Ask Jeeves for Kids or Google, and download and save a graphic. They also need to use a multimedia authoring program such as Microsoft Power Point or Hyperstudio.

Materials and resources required: Students will need a computer with Internet access, a printer and a multimedia program such as Microsoft Power Point or Hyperstudio. Paper and pencils to take notes, watercolor paper, and watercolor paint sets are also needed. A digital camera or scanner will also be necessary to digitize their presidential portraits in order to incorporate them into the multimedia presentations.

Vocabulary:

President: The person who holds the office of head of state of the United States government.

portrait: A painting of a person's face.

Procedures: Students will select or be assigned a president. Review how to use a search engine to find Internet sites and how to scan information, take notes, download graphics, and the procedure for saving and printing the graphics. Students will take notes of information about their chosen president. They will then print a portrait of the president and copy it using a pencil on watercolor paper or regular white art paper (even white copy paper works). They will then use water color paint to color the portrait. When dry they will go over the lines with a fine-tip black marker. The portraits will need to be scanned or a digital picture taken of the portrait. Review how to use Microsoft PowerPoint or Hyperstudio to make a multimedia presentation. Each presentation should be at least two slides. The first slide should have a title and the name of the student with at least two graphics and important facts in list or bullet form about the president. The second slide should have the presidential portrait the student painted and more information. The text on each slide should not exceed seven lines and should be in a font size of at least 22. The text should be animated and sound can be incorporated. The separate presentations can then be consolidated into one presentation to be shown at Open House.

Activities:

Students will:

• Select a president
• Use a search engine such as Ask Jeeves for Kids or Google or use one of the sites below to locate information
  • http://worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/presidents.html Great site, written for children
    http://whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ Excellent site, great deal of information and portraits
    http://ipl.org/div/potus/Internet Public Library, a good site with portraits and information in an easy to understand format
    http://presidentsusa.net/bio.html Biographies of the presidents
    http://americanpresidents.org/ Portraits and information
• Download a portrait of the president
• Take notes of important information about president
• Download other graphics for the presentation
• Copy the portrait in pencil, then paint with watercolor
• Scan or take a digital photo of the portrait
• Create a multimedia presentation with
  • Two slides
  • Titles
  • Text boxes with facts about president in list form
  • Animation
  • Sound

Evaluation: Click here for the rubric designed for this activity and created at Rubistar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/) One method of grading the project using the rubric might be to assign 4 points for items in the excellent column, 3 for items in the good column, 2 points in the satisfactory column and 1 point for the needs improvement column. A student who earns 12 or more points would be considered to have scored above average, 8-11 would be average, and a score between four and seven would be below average and the student did not meet the objectives.

Homework: Create an illustrated timeline of the president's life.

Extension: Students can research the years in which the president served his term and note scientific discoveries, important events, music styles, well-known artists and composers, fads and fashion, etc.

Student Work Samples: Click for presidential portraits and Power Point slides.

Back to top