Typing

Typing Games
[|ABCya: Keyboard Challenge] - place the keys back on the keyboard correctly

[|Auntie Lee] - Auntie Lee offers a variety of beginner keyboarding games and themes. Students can start with simple letter keyboarding and move to more difficult levels with full text. The visuals and themes keep the concepts light and maintain the child's attention. Examples of the topics include Typing Letters, Typing Words, Educational Games, and more.

[|Keyboarding Sites] - This site offers a compilation list of MANY keyboarding sites. There is quite a variety; you may want to spend a few minutes exploring your MANY options. Some are more elementary: spelling basic words or easy enough for young students. Others are complex and geared towards middle school and beyond. Some of the activities are actual lesson plans, while others are educational interactives.

[|Key Seeker] - useful for helping younger students start to find their way around the keyboard

[|Meteor Typing Blast] - Meteoroid-style typing game where you get rid of the meteors by typing the words underneath them. Includes 30 different lessons with three difficulties.

[|Spacebar Invaders] - Space Invaders-style typing game where you get rid of the invading aliens by typing the words underneath them. Includes 30 different lessons with three difficulties.

[|TuxType 2] - a free, downloadable typing game with two different versions of the game, three levels of difficulty, and many lessons to choose from. Parents and/or teachers can also create their own lessons using vocabulary words.

[|Free Typing Games] - Lots of different typing games

Tutorials
[|Dance Mat Typing] - typing tutorial based on popular dance-mat games; includes sound and music while students type. Has four levels of difficulty with three lessons in each

[|Keyboarding Practice] - downloadable sheets that open in Word, for students to practice their typing skills

Typing Pal Online - We have purchased a program called Typing Pal, which is an online resource that is engaging and highly interactive. The best thing about Typing Pal is that is entirely online, so it will be very easy for your students to work on their typing from home! Each student in grades 3-5 has been entered into the system. To use the program, they need to log in with their regular WIS username and their WIS password (entered twice – example, 12341234). Right now, the program is only available in English, but we are looking into options for French, Spanish and Dutch.

Ideas

 * Laminate keyboard for every student
 * Play Twister with shower curtain keyboard
 * If money isn't a problem, buy each student a Webkinz! These stuffed animals come with a code to have a virtual pet at their website - their "owners" will need to feed and educate their virtual pet. There are numerous activities included on the website and students can send messages to their friends who also have Webkinz pets; students get very into sending messages and will work very hard on typing quickly! Maybe you and your child can each get a Wekbinz, and you can message each other!
 * Creative writing is a great motivator for students - very few children do not enjoy coming up with their own stories, poems, or plays! One great website to use if students are a little stuck on what to write is the Story Starter website from Scholastic - just pick your grade and spin the wheel to get great story topics. If your child gets really into story writing, you might even reward them by purchasing a bound copy of their writing from Illustory. Older students might enjoy the challenge of creating an entire short novel in one month - look at the NaNoWriMo website for more information on that worldwide project.
 * If your child isn't a huge fan of writing stories or poetry, maybe they would like to create a __trading card__ for their favorite book character or celebrity? Or maybe they would like to create their own __comic__ ? Aside from the tools linked here, you could use Microsoft Publisher or Word (or __OpenOffice__ ), as well as the fantastic __Comic Life__.
 * Does your child have a favorite celebrity or author? Why not encourage them to write that person a fan letter! Not only will this activity encourage students to type, but they will also be working with punctuation, formatting, spelling, and grammar. And, who knows - maybe they will get a letter back! One website that you can use with your child to find addresses of celebrities is __Write to a Celeb__ . You could even write a letter to the __President of the United States__ !
 * Encourage your child to keep an electronic journal or diary (AlphaSmarts would work well for this, as would any word processing program). This could be as simple as students writing down what happened during their day, to as complicated as dreams for the future, or even a dream journal where they can start to interpret their dreams.
 * For more advanced students, why not help your child create their own website? This can be in the form of a traditional website, a blog (basically an electronic journal where people can add comments), or even a wiki (an interactive website, like Wikipedia). The simplest way to get started with a blog or website is to sign your child up for a Google Account (either with or without a gmail email account). This account will allow your child access to some great online tools, such as word processing and presentation programs that allow collaboration from anywhere with an internet connection, as well as giving them a __Blogger__ account for blog creation and a __Google Sites__ account to create their own website. Anything that your child makes can be made completely private, if you so choose.
 * While younger students are probably not up to the challenge of a blog or website, they are certainly capable of using email with your help and supervision. Is there a relative or family friend that lives far away, that your child can write to? You can set up a __free email account__ with your child, so that you both know the password (and you can check in periodically), and send emails to these relatives together. A great extension to this would be to use the program __Skype__ to call these relatives - there is a chat feature available in Skype, so that your child can type to the relative while also having a voice conversation.