Category: 1st

Many of my most popular articles are about mouse skills. Every year, tens of thousands of teachers visit Ask a Tech Teacher to find resources for teaching students how to use a mouse. No surprise because using a mouse correctly is one of the most important pre-keyboarding skills. Holding it is not intuitive and if learned wrong, becomes a habit that’s difficult to break.

The earlier posts are still active, but I’ve updated this resource with more websites and posters to assist in starting off your newest computer aficionados.

Mouse Skills

1. Bees and Honey
2. Drawing Melody–draw in many colors with the mouse and create music
3. Hover skills–drag mouse over the happy face and see it move
4. Left-click practice while playing the piano
5. MiniMouse
6. Mouse and tech basics–video
7. Mouse practice—drag, click
8. Mouse skills
9. Mouse Song
10. Mr. Picasso Head
11. OwlieBoo–mouse practice
12. Wack-a-gopher (no gophers hurt in this)

Puzzles

Kids love puzzles and they are a great way to teach drag-and-drop skills with the mouse buttons. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Digipuzzles–great puzzles for geography, nature, and holidays
2. Jigsaw Planet–create your own picture jigsaw
3. Jigsaw puzzles
4. Jigzone–puzzles
5. Jigsaw Puzzles–JS

Adults

1. Mousing Around
2. Skillful Senior

Posters

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Many Christians celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. The date depends on the ecclesiastical approximation of the March equinox. This year, it’s April 16, 2017.

Here are some websites your students will love:

1. Easter color-me (for Kindergarten/first grade)
2. Easter Color Me to print or import to drawing program
3. Easter games II
4. Easter games III
5. Easter games IV
6. Easter poems and songs (to play online)
7. Easter Puppies–video
8. Easter puzzles and games
9. Easter songs for kids
10. Easter story--the Easter Egg–video
11. Easter Word hunt (Starfall)

Here are four sites that work well with iPads:

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Many students enter kindergarten with a basic knowledge of digital devices like iPads and smartphones, but this rarely includes the use of a mouse. This little piece of hardware is strictly for desktop devices and maybe add-ons for laptops. In today’s tech world, you may even consider it a niche item.

But you’d be wrong.

Rarely is there a child that can get through school without using a mouse. If s/he doesn’t know the basic skills — click, double-click, right-click, drag-drop, hover — they will be confused, even frustrated, by so much of what makes technology work. These are not intuitive, starting with how to hold the mouse.

Little hands with undeveloped fine motor skills struggle to keep their pointer and middle finger spread apart while simultaneously pushing with one finger rather than the whole hand. The moment before students grab ahold of that round little device, teach them how to use it. Don’t expect them — or force them — to figure it out on their own. It’s not intuitive and — like keyboarding — will only create bad habits that must be broken later.

Here are nine websites that teach mouse basics to kindergarten and first graders in clever ways:

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I repost this article every September because I get so many requests for mouse resources for those youngest keyboarders. Enjoy!

One of the most important pre-keyboarding skills is how to use the mouse. The mouse hold is not intuitive and if learned wrong, becomes a habit that’s difficult to break. Here are some images to assist you in setting up your newest computer aficionados:

Here are 16 websites students will enjoy, including 3 for adults new to computers:

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Primary schoolers learn about money. The only way to really ‘get it’ is by repetition. Here’s a list of websites to provide redundancy for each type of learner:

1. Brain Pop Learn about Money
2. Cash Out
3. Cashtivity
4. Coin Counting
5. Coin games—from US Mint
6. Count Money
7. Counting Money
8. Face on money
9. Face on money–from Lunapic; lots of options
10. Make change
11. Money—counting
12. Moneyville
13. Money Flashcards–APlus Math
14. Mr. Bouncy’s Money collection–lots of websites
15. US Mint virtual tour (a slideshow)

If you have iPads, here are two you’ll love:

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Many Christians celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. The Easter date depends on the ecclesiastical approximation of the March equinox. This year, it’s March 31st. Here are some websites your students will love:

1. Easter color-me (for Kindergarten/first grade)
2. Easter Color Me to print or import to drawing program
3. Easter games II
4. Easter games III
5. Easter games IV
6. Easter poems and songs (to play online)
7. Easter Puppies–video
8. Easter puzzles and games
9. Easter songs for kids
10. Easter story--the Easter Egg–video
11. Easter Word hunt (Starfall)

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Many people in the United States, particularly students, parents and teachers, join forces on Read Across America Day, annually held on March 2. This nationwide observance coincides with the birthday of Dr Seuss.

Here are some great reading websites for students K-5:

1. Aesop Fables—no ads
2. Aesop’s Fables
3. Audio stories
4. Childhood Stories
5. Classic Fairy Tales
6. Fairy Tales and Fables
7. Interactive storybook collection
8. Listen/read–Free non-fic audio books
9. Magic Keys–stories for youngers
10. Mighty Book
11. PBS Stories–Between the Lions
12. Signed stories
13. Starfall
14. Stories read by actors
15. Stories to read for youngsters
16. Stories to read from PBS kids
17. Stories to read–II
18. Stories—MeeGenius—read/to me
19. Stories—non-text
20. Story Scramble
21. Storytime for me
22. Teach your monster to read (free)
23. Ziggity Zoom Stories

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ScratchJr

ages 5-7

Free

Overview

ScratchJr (released July 2014) is an introductory programming language for ages 5-7 similar to the wildly popular Scratch (for 3rd grade and up). ScratchJr adjusts Scratch’s interface and programming language to make it developmentally appropriate for pre-readers with features that match young children’s cognitive, personal, social, and emotional development. For example, optional video directions are all visual–no reading required. No voice even!

ScratchJr treats programming (a term that frightens even adults) as simply a creative way to communicate–another language. Start by opening the app:

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Here’s Melanie’s question about teaching keyboarding effectively:

My problem is that I only see each group of students (PK – 4th grade) once a week for 30min.  I see 1st and 2nd grade two times a week. How do I successfully teach keyboarding AND my regular tech curriculum with next to no time to do both? I’ve thought about doing keyboarding for the first half of the year and then my curriculum the next half.. but I’m just not sure.

I often get a version of this question–how can students learn to keyboard when there’s so little time allotted to teaching it? Surprisingly, it’s not as difficult as it sounds when you use a scaffolded approach. Start with pre-keyboarding in Kindergarten and first grade, move to good keyboarding habits that encourage speed and accuracy, and then blend it all into grade-level inquiry.

Here’s my answer:

PK, K, 1 are all about pre-keyboarding skills. Students need to understand the purpose of a keyboard, the mouse, tools and toolbars, basic digital citizenship safety, rudimentary problem solving. That can be done within the timeframe you’ve indicated. In fact, I lay it out in the K-1 curriculum that I publish. It’s easier than it sounds: Know what grade-level inquiry you can support and weave the tech skills into those.

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Here’s along list of websites that focus on math automaticity for the K-5 classroom. I’ve broken it down by grade level, but you can decide if your second graders are precocious enough to try the websites for grades 3-5:

K

• K Math Skills
• Math Videos (not practice, but fun to watch)
• Money flashcards
• Numbers

1^st

• First Grade math skills
• Money flashcards
• Numbers

2^nd

• Math Flashcards
• Math Practice Test
• Mental Math
• More Quick Math
• Multiplication Tables
• Quick Math
• Quick Math II
• Quick Math—by level (more…)