Using games to teach basic computer mouse skills

I am thinking of using Solitaire as a tool for practicing click and drag skill for our parents and possibly with our youngest students. Do any of you have any suggestions for simple games that would allow students to practice other mouse functions like cut, copy and paste or other right-click and left-click tricks? I wonder if there is a curriculum out there that addresses these basic and very useful skills in a game format.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Applegate on February 6, 2010 at 12:09pm

Hi, Jacek!

Have you checked out http://www.pbclibrary.org/mousing/ ? There are some good resources for that kind of thing there.

I love your inclination to go at it from a game perspective. It's a great way to foster natural learning! You might check out the new Professional Learning Community for teachers interested in using and developing their own learning games at www.learninggamesnetwork.com/plc. We're hoping to build it into a community and clearinghouse for questions and ideas just like these, and to help give teachers the tools to develop some of their own games when what's "out there" is lacking.

Let me know if you find any other promising games for mouse skills!

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Permalink Reply by Bernadette Roche on February 9, 2010 at 9:08pm

Not appropriate for adults, although cute. I use this site for my youngest students (ages 3-4) to learn the mouse. http://www.headsprout.com/code/launchMA.cfm

For the youngest kids, I do a lot of matching games and coloring pages so they get the hang of the mouse in simple ways. You can see the links here - The ones for Preschool and Prekindergarten - http://www.oakhilldayschool.org/cms/Display.cfm?PageID=729304103

When I teach, I do a lot of the "piano method" and place my hand ontop of the students hand to click and move so the student gets a feel for how quick to double click, how to click and drag, etc. Even just putting my hand on the child's so that it is placed correctly on the mouse - lots of little ones like to angle their hand and click with their thumbs.

I don't get into more advanced things like the right click features until 1st grade. I find the dexterity just isn't there yet to use the middle finger alone.