Third grade will be sharing a cart of Chromebooks this year between the two classes! That is very exciting, for the students and for their teachers! They will be learning a lot this year!

Third grade is the year that we focus on keyboarding. They have learned about correct finger placement, and posture. We talked about how important it is to not stare at a screen, any screen, for too long. Did you know that on average we blink 12-15 times a minute, but when staring at a screen, we tend to only blink 3-4 times a minute? This causes dry eye syndrome, and eye strain. It's important for everyone to take frequent, short breaks from staring at a screen, be it computer, phone, TV, or tablet. 

10/12/17
This week the 3rd graders logged into their typing.com account to continue learning to touch type. But this time they did it with the keyboard covers on! Most found it very difficult to type without looking down at the keys, but this is how we build muscle memory, which will help them be quick, accurate typists for life.

We will begin keyboarding homework soon. From late-October to mid-December, they will have homework 3 times a week. More info will be communicated to you before we start. Typing multiple times throughout the week, with the correct finger placement and posture, will help your child build muscle memory, and become adept at keyboarding.

Next week, the students will be graded on participation (as they are most weeks), and also on their keyboarding technique. Speed and accuracy will NOT be graded at this point. I will be looking to see if they are using correct posture and finger placement, as we have been working on for over month.