Technology in Kindergarten

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Permalink Reply by Anne Pemberton on April 27, 2009 at 7:07pm

Scott,

As you have the children learn the alphabet, let them find the letter on the keyboard and practice typing that letter. They should also learn to type their own full names. Lesson plans for some Kindergarten activities are at http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/prof/index-Lessons.html and you may want to check out a game under Language Arts, AlphaRomp: http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/language/AlphaRomp.html which asks the students to type a line of the letter, type a word that begins with the letter, then type a sentence that contains the letter word. There are other links to alphabet activities on http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/language/index-Alphabet.html ... and there are the Alphabet stories with printable word cards, and (A-E) games: http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/books/index-Alphabet.html .... You may also want to look around the site and find other activities that your Kindergarteners will enjoy, combining printables with online stuff. Let me know, if you use any of it, how it appeals to your students!

Anne

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Permalink Reply by Amber Cregan on January 5, 2011 at 5:27pm

Anne,

Thank you for these resources! I teach Kindergarten and while my students use www.starfall.com on the computer during literacy centers, its always refreshing to find other websites and ideas to use with the computer. I'm sure my students will thoroughly enjoy it as well!

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Permalink Reply by Stu on April 29, 2009 at 6:59am

I have been trying to get my teachers in younger grades to take advantage of the true Publishing opportunities we have available to us.

Sure, students like to have their work published by hanging it in the hallway or room,but why not give them a true sense of publishing for "the world". Any piece of hand created work can easily be made digital and published to your website(if you have one, if not there are tons of options out there). Scanning can be tough with art work etc, but simply putting the work on a table and taking a picture of it with a digital camera is easy. Post the picture(s) and its published!

Being able to show their parents their work at home by going to a website gives them a true sense of sharing their work with all. Divorced parents, relatives that live far away (or down the street for that matter) can see the child's work, and even leave comments (hopefully all positive at that age). The child can then see the comments and at least, have them read to them. What a great way to give meaning to school and the work they produce. Good luck returning to the wee ones, your 3rd graders are going to seem like adults!

Stu

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Permalink Reply by Scott Gaglione on April 30, 2009 at 10:19am

Stu,
What a great idea! This is very manageable thanks to the prescence of a scanner and digital cameras in my classroom. I am looking forward returning to the wee ones- they always were my favorite!!

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Permalink Reply by Ana-Alicia Valdez on February 27, 2011 at 4:30pm

I really like your ideas and agree that by publishing a student's work, they feel an added sense of pride and ownership of their accomplishments. I was wondering if you had to obtain permission from parents before publishing work created by students online? I know when I was in school, parents had to give permission for pictures of students to be used on the school website or other media. Does the same apply for the work of a student?

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Permalink Reply by Ariane Skapetis on April 29, 2009 at 7:29am

Hi Scott,

A wonderful software program for kindys and for all children aged 5-12 is Kid Pix Studio Deluxe.
It is a paint/draw software with slideshows and writing tools.
A great first reading website is www.starfall.com.

Good luck with the kindys

Ariane

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Permalink Reply by Jacqui Murray on August 6, 2009 at 11:35am

Hey, Ariane

I teach kindergarten tech and those two--KidPix and Starfall--are favorites. The other is Google Earth. They love taking the built-in tour, and I have my fifth graders make a tour that K's can then access. Nice crossover.

Zoopz.com and Gamegoo are two other great sites that teach mouse skills, keyboarding and using toolbars.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Pemberton on April 29, 2009 at 12:13pm

Stu,

An excellent idea! Some years back I did just that with a class of elementary special kids. I showed them some children's drawings for "Peace" on the UN site, and asked them to make their own Peace pictures, then brought them home and scanned them, and next day they were up on the screen. One little boy, when his picture came up on the screen, thought ti was some sort of "magic", and began walking backwards away from the screen in fear. The families were delighted with the website, since they could share it with distant folks. Most impressed was the principal who didn't realize that those children could have such expressive and creative expressions on the term "peace". It was during 2002, months after 9/11, and one of the children drew a picture of a "HazMat" truck his father drove to NYC to help with the clean up.

Very powerful experiences!!!

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Permalink Reply by Scott Gaglione on April 30, 2009 at 10:20am

What a poignant response by such a young child. I find that far too often we underestimate the capabilities of our little guys- thanks for reminding us of the possibilities!

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Permalink Reply by R. Scott Young on April 30, 2009 at 4:26pm

Feel free to use my interactive activities web site. Select "Reading" then "Kindergarten" or "Math" then "Kindergarten" for online content.

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Permalink Reply by Robin Fairfield on May 6, 2009 at 7:01pm

Scott I want to thank you for introducing me to your site. I met you at Christa Mcauliffe conference and use your site frequency because of how easy it is to access. Thanks for all the work you've done. It covers a lot of subjects.

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Permalink Reply by Faith Shabat on October 5, 2009 at 7:44pm

R. Scott,
Your site is full of wonderful resources, organized well, and easy to navigate through. Thank you for sharing. Feel free to explore my site also. I've found some wonderful resources through the years, and I've posted some of our projects, as well. www.bzkids.org.
Scott, I've made podcasts with my Kindergarten and first graders and posted them on my website. I've made slideshows in Kid Pix with the preschoolers also. As Anne said, they love seeing themselves online, and sharing it with parents and even grandparents out of state. Kid Pix lets you insert movies into their drawings. I have them draw a picture in Kid Pix and then embed a video of them explaining their picture. We make it into a class slide show to play during conferences. Everyone loves it.
Good luck,
Faith

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