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Mouse and Keyboard Skills - Key Stage 1
Objectives Mouse and keyboard skills; move mouse, left/right click, drag and drop. Typing; Find letters on keyboard and begin touch typing with home row keys. What will you need? Internet access and the websites outlined below. Introduction Mouse and physical keyboard skills have become more and more challenging to teach, mainly due to the increase use of tablet computers and touch screen. However, they are still important skills to teach to provide pupils with a range of skills to use different types of computer. If you want to make your onscreen cursor bigger to help pupils then follow the instructions for Windows here, Chromebook here and Apple Mac here. |
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1. Move Cursor and Left Clicking
Objectives Move the cursor to the correct place and left click an object. What will you need? Pupils need access to the websites outlined below in the pupil activities. Teacher Input Show the pupils the mouse and explain why it is called a mouse (because the wire is like a tail, although your mouse may be wireless). This video is a nice introduction video of how to hold the mouse correctly. Pupil Activitys 1. Pupils try the Mouse Club Snowball activity to left click the mice in the doors to throw the snowballs at them. 2. Once pupils are confident, they can then improve the accuracy of their mouse clicks by trying the dot-to-dot activities on Mouse Club: - Balloon Dot-to-Dot - Car Dot-to-Dot - Boat Dot-to-dot - Flower Dot-to-dot As an extension activity, for even more mouse accuracy, pupils could try the dot-to-dot activities on the Softschools website. |
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2. Click and drag
Objectives Click and drag. What will you need? Pupils need access to the websites outlined below in the pupil activities. Teacher Input Show the pupils how to click and drag an item around the screen using the Mouse Club website (such as 'Make a space picture') Pupil Activitys 1. Pupils can use click and drag on the Mouse Club website to try the following activities: - Decorate the tree. - Dress a Snowman. - Make a space picture. - Make a garden picture. - Make a sea picture. 2. Pupil can also try the Dress Lecky activity on the on Crickweb website to dress Lecky in appropriate clothes for the website outside by clicking on the drawers and wardrobe and dragging the clothes onto Lecky. 3. The City Creator website is a nice way to use many mouse skills. Pupils can choose from 3 different cities; medieval, future and snow. A background can be chosen and various buildings, people, vehicles and roads can be dragged onto the screen. Objects can be deleted by dragging them into the dumper in the bottom right hand corner. |
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3.Find letter keys on a keyboard and begin touch typing
Objectives Use a physical keyboard to find a specific letter and begin to position hands correctly for touch typing. What will you need? Pupils need access to the websites outlined below in the pupil activities. Introduction/Teacher Input Like mouse control above, typing correctly with a physical keyboard using all the fingers on both hands can seem foreign to children use to typing with one finger on a touch screen. The activities and resources outlined below aim to teach pupils to type correctly, firstly by finding keys on a QUERTY keyboard and then beginning to touch type using all fingers. Start by showing pupils a physical keyboard and pointing out the main keys (letters, numbers, space bar, back space, return) and explain/giving examples of what each does. Ask the question: Why are the letters not in alphabetical order? Answer: The most used letters are spaced apart to avoid fingers colliding too often when typing correctly. Pupil Activity 1: Pupils can try the Primary Games Areas typing activity where they need to find the letter show on the screen and score as many points as possible within 30 minutes. The good thing about this activity is the website shows pupils an illustration of where to find the key on the keyboard, as well as the upper and lower case letter. Pupil Activity 2: The BBC dance mat website teaches pupils touch typing and key stage 1 pupils can start with level 1, which introduces putting their hands in the correct place and finding keys on the home row. Watch the video below to see how it works. |
