My students need interactive Boogie Boards to enhance their learning of writing letters/numbers/shapes. This tool can be used one-on-one or in a whole group setting.
Students in my preschool classroom are being introduced to a lifelong educational journey that hopefully will last 16+ years. What an awesome and important introduction I have as their teacher! Success in life can begin with a positive, exciting experience in preschool.
I am in a Title I preschool class within a smaller elementary school.
Our facility is only a few years old, and we are surrounded by farms. Many of the students in my classroom were flagged as needing extra help for success in school. As a preschool teacher, my students have possibly never been in a school setting. Some students come in with a knowledge of letters, and some can't even hold a pencil. I need for my students to have at year's end a solid foundation allowing them to proceed successfully in school. We have already in two months of school developed a sense of family within our classroom. Many times I see students helping each other with social aspects as well as academic. We do not have assigned seats, because we are always rotating around the classroom. We learn by experience. We learned the letter F when students got down on the floor to create an uppercase F! We do scavenger hunts around the school for shapes. We utilize all 5 senses, because hands-on means brains on!
My Project
My 1970s elementary experience was boring compared to today's technological interactive classroom methods. I need to meet my students where they are today, and technology is a must. Having a 'touch' screen like a Boogie Board to learn letter/number formations will make a stronger impression than simply writing with pencil and paper. And, the students will have more fun doing it! Fine motor skills are not mastered at the age of 4, so using fingers to write will teach the formations of letters/numbers. The formation on paper will follow. Manipulating a pencil on a paper that is always moving is a multi-step process for a 4 year old. Writing with fingers on a Boogie Board is one motion and much less complicated. The Boogie Board is also more exciting to a preschooler than writing on paper. The students will want to use the boards, because it is something they have probably never used.
Having Boogie Boards to improve fine motor skills by practicing letter writing will improve students' lives.
A child entering kindergarten with a background knowledge of letter/number formations will put that student at a step ahead of other students who have no prior knowledge of letters/numbers. An at risk child, as some of mine are, will begin kindergarten with an advantage. He/she will not struggle with the basics, while the rest of the class advances. He/she will have the foundation.
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