This week we have ISI (the independent school’s Ofsted) visiting and on Wednesday I was observed teaching Reception ICT. This term’s topic for EYFS is “Reach for the Stars” and this week the children have been learning about the planets. In ICT the children used the slice tool in 2 Paint a Picture to design their own planets. They then printed and saved their work. I am still awaiting my feedback from the inspector, although she did say she really enjoyed the lesson as she left.
This morning I used http://annrymer/keyseeker/ with Reception class. It’s a really simple way of introducing the children to the letter keys on the keyboard. All it does is display a letter that the children have to type. The letter is accompanied by a relevant picture to help the children recognise the letter. It actually displays the letters in two different colours depending on which hand should be used to type which letter but I didn’t worry about this.
The reception class were able to complete the activity fairly easily so I then tried the nursery group with it. My concern was whether they could actually recognise the uppercase letters but they were really good especially when the letters were initials of names in the class. The pictures also helped and they were able to think of other things beginning with that letter. Once they got their own go on the laptops they worked really well. For some it took them a few attempts to locate the correct letter but they improved as they went along. A few of the children picked it up really quickly and one boy was helping those around him. The real star of the lesson though was the youngest girl in the group who picked it up straight away and found all 26 bananas in a faster time than any of the reception children. The Nursery teacher was amazed at how well the children were recognising the letters and also the converstaions they were having with each other to help locate the letters.
I’m really beginning to enjoy working with the Early Years 🙂
One of my biggest challenges in my new job has been getting to grips with taking the little ones for ICT. In my previous job I worked mainly with upper KS2 and occasionally with groups of younger children. Initially I have just been focussing on developing their mouse control skills and awareness of the keyboard. I have used several online games and activities to help such as…
http://www.thecolor.com/Â which allows children to point and click to colour in images
http://www.gamesolo.com/games/maze-game which requires the children to use the arrow keys to find their way out of a maze. Some of the more able children were then playing Pacman
I’ve also used Poisson Rouge which is a fantastic collection of activities that all help develop mouse control and an undertsnding about interacting with elements on screen.
But by far the children’s favourite is Boowa and Kwala which is another vast collection of games and activities. There are various categories of games such as maze games, spot the difference and sorting games.
I have used Boowa and Kwala with Nursery, Reception and Year 1. My year 1s were using the sorting games to feed seeds to the correct birds, put rubbish in the correct recycling bin and furnish rooms in a house appropriately.
The Boowa and Kwala site also has songs and animations to entertain the children with as well.
I am hoping to get more equipment for Nursery and Reception so that they can explore using beebots, microphones, cameras etc.
I’d be very interested to hear from anyone who is more experienced in teaching ICT to the younger age groups.
Chris Leach 
