The kids don’t yet know how to type, though hubby has been suggesting it for more than a year now. It was just one of those things that was hard to add into our day. About two weeks ago, we finally took the plunge. I started off introducing the keyboard to them in collection (our group time). I didn’t tell them what we were doing at first… had them outline their fingers and thumbs at the bottom of the page. Then had the draw squares and put in the letters of the keyboard (just the line where your fingers rest) making a simplified typing chart. At first they were mystified, but pretty quickly figured out that they were drawing a typing keyboard.
Once they had the basics of the typing chart down we practiced together pretending to type fffff jjjjj fjfjfjfj ffffffggggg jjjjjjhhhh and things like that. First on paper and then on a word document.
The image above is courtesy of wikimedia commons.
On the recommendations of some other homeschoolers, we started using the free BBC typing program called Dance Mat Typing. So far that’s going well for the kids.
Here are some screen shots I took the first day. You can see it introduces things gradually. The kids loved the program and loved the accent!
You can visit Dance Mat Typing here.
Another cute typing exercise is the Big Brown Bear. It’s not as fun looking or colorful looking, but it’s good practice for the kids.
Have you used a typing program that worked well for your kids? I would love to hear what your recommendations are. ~Liesl
A bit later I added in this:
Over on my Facebook page a couple people recommended Typing Instructor for Kids Platinum. I obviously haven’t tried it out, but I thought I’d pass along their recommendation.