The 2025-2026 year is a special scheduled year. Students in Kinder come to room 107 for 30 minutes each week.  This room is set up like a future lab, but this year we only have two classrooms for future lab. Instead, students have the class to focus on technology. 

Most students know me as "Mr. Chicken" so don't be alarmed if they refer to me that way instead of my real name, Mr. Lemoine.  

Classes this year are focused on technology. In the short time I have for each class, all grade k-3 students each week for 30 minutes, the grade 1 students work mainly on Chromebooks. The skills they learn with me are aimed at reinforcing what the students learn in their core classes.

Loging into a Tech Room Chromebook:  This is the first school year we have piloted a quick sign-in for grade 1.  Students arrive in my classroom and recieve their card. There is a QR code on the card.  Students can choose any one of the available Chromebooks in my room and login using the QR code on their card.  There are 3 or 4 steps to loggin in. Once your student has that process of clicks mastered, the QR code opens up their Clever account.  *The process for a school Chromebook requires  a username and password. 

Main Content:  There are three main platforms Kinder will focus on this year.  

Typing club:  this reinforces practice with a keyboard. Keyboard specific practice is sprinkled into lessons rather than focused on regularly or for a full class.

Tech Skills:  the basic skills of using a chromebook are passive skills. We don't focus on them but the students use them every class. (Examples:  device care, ON/OFF, opening/closing windows, choosing to open or close apps, touchscreen or keyboard options, volume, pausing apps, logging in/out of their accounts, and much more.)

Content skills:  The beginning of each class is devoted to a short introduction to a new activity challenge. We are using the ABCya platform this year for short classes. I choose a variety of activities but only model one new one each class period. The rest of the period is given to students to explore the challenge and move on to other activies. Time flies in this class. The challenges focus heavily on maths, language, and problem solving apps.  The ABCya account is not widely available outside of class, only a small number of students (1 class) can be on the platform at any time. I reserve those seats for my classes only.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me or come visit F2F.

-Sincerely

Greg Lemoine (a.k.a. "Mr. Chicken")