As a special treat this past week, I presented the video version of the book Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson.  I purchased this book for my children many years ago and fell in love with the story, so I found the associated movie and shared it with our kids at school.  The underlying message is about kindness and how a good-hearted witch invites a few “friends” onto her broom, and then in turn they take care of her by saving her from a hungry dragon.  After the movie, the children shared their views and we all had a wonderful and thoughtful dialog around the story. It is a lovely book and I encourage you to read it or add it to your library.

Following along with the Park Shore academic curriculum, over the course of the past month we reviewed colors up to black, shapes including rectangles and triangles, and our alphabet up through the letter D.  Classroom reinforcement included games on the SMART Board and letter tracing games on the iPads. All of our games include a learning component, therefore even when the children are having fun they are learning! 

My new favorite website that I have been using with Kindergarten is topmarks.co.uk.  Like abcya.com, topmarks.co.uk has multiple free learning games that are both fun and educational.  I have even been able to load this on the iPads so the children will be able to play the games individually on both the iPads as well as on the laptops.

As we enter November, the children are becoming more technically savvy, and I have begun to work with Kindergarten on their mouse skills on the laptops.  I will be working with PreK as well in the months to follow in order to prepare them for primary school. Our younger children work with skill development programs on the iPads such as sorting and coloring, which helps to develop their fine motor skills.  We have also begun coding on the iPads in some classes, which will help to lay the foundation for our participation in the global event The Hour of Code, which I will host in our school during the first two weeks of December.

Have a wonderful November and enjoy the beauty of the season!  Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or suggestions that you may have.  

Sincerely,

Miss Samantha

Park Shore Computer & Technology Teacher

samantha@parkshoredaycamp.com