Literacy: Kindergarten activity review.

Task 4: Implementation of a Finger Rhyme activity.

Lesson plan: Finger Rhyme (5 little Lady Bugs) and reading of a story.
Purpose of activity: Do a finger rhyme with children (on an insect the children are familiar with): The lady bug.

- Illustrations will give the children contextual clues to what the rhyme is trying to communicate.

Equipment:
- Finger Rhyme poster (5 Little Lady Bugs) by Rita Galloway.

Five Little Lady Bugs:

Five little lady bugs sitting in a tree, (hold up five fingers)
The first one said, “ I’m glad I’m me”.(wiggle thumb).
The second one said, “I feel great too”.(wiggle pointer finger).
The third one said, “How about you?” (wiggle middle finger).
The fourth one said “It’s time to fly away”. (wiggle ring finger).
The fifth one said, “We’ll talk another day”. (wiggle little finger.)

Evaluation: I shared this activity with a group of 3 year old children in a childcare centre. The children responded quite well where they showed this by following along and imitating the finger movements. I read the rhyme to them three times. The children were very familiar with ladybugs, as the classroom’s name was LadyBeetles!

I personalized the poem by adding the children’s names after holding up each finger, and the children giggled when they heard their names being mentioned.

Task 5: Evaluation of a computer learning program.

Title: JumpStart Kindergarten: Teaches Essential Skills for School.

Age Appropriateness: Good

• Only appropriate for pre-school age children (4 years and above as per the target age group of this program).

Multi-Cultural: Good

• Dolls: Rearrange dolls from smallest to biggest. (multi-cultural dolls )
• Has toys and manipulatives from other cultures. A calendar that shows the different seasons and festivals, i.e, Chanukah according to the computer calendar.

Interactive: Satisfactory

• It requires a lot of reliance on audio instructions, which may not be appropriate for deaf children.
• Cupboard: Which has random objects on the shelves. When the cursor clicks on it, it will say the name of the object as well as the label of the object in capital letters.

Child-Friendly Functionality: Excellent

• Only needs the mouse to work and click on the activity.

Literacy: Good

• Chalkboard activity: A sentence will be said out and the child has to click on the corresponding pictures. The name of the object will be said out when it is clicked on and its labels will appear. Introduces names of objects with the label.
• Rhyming: Introduces rhyming of objects in a visual manner.
• Aquarium with a hamster: To look for hamster in the room. The hamster will give verbal instructions. Children learn to develop listening skills.
• Introduces the letters of the alphabet
• Matching of shapes.

Classification: Good

• Colouring paints activity: To find the “odd man out” and then colour, or paint the pictures.
• Outdoors: Take pictures with a camera for painting/ colouring purposes
• Sequencing: From the smallest to the largest doll.
• Counting skills: 1-20 (on the mat).
• Classification skills: Extends and practices classification skills: shapes in the right box, “odd man out”,

Different modes of language: Very Good

• Radio: Singing and dancing on the mat. Click on the pictures to start the music
• Music: Songs from the radio as well as the letters of the alphabet which is fun, and the ABC song is something familiar to a lot of children.

Children’s Interests: Satisfactory

The activities provided are fairly interesting, but could be better.

Related links:

Literacy Tasks (2nd Year Studies: Part 2)