In searching for a tool to enhance my second graders’ creating minds, I rediscovered an old friend. About 8 years ago I was using Kid Works Deluxe. I had even developed a template to make it easier for students to navigate the program. I just quit using it. I have at least ten copies of the program in my classroom, so I don’t have to purchase anything.

In researching it as one of my picks, I went to the Knowledge Adventure site which describes Kid Works as a tool that builds reading, writing and creativity skills. The first curriculum skill mentioned is “Write and think creatively.” Kid Works was designed for kindergarten through fourth grade students. It includes a word processor and a paint program. It also includes 100 sound effects, 100 animations, 100 “story starter ideas,” 140 illustration starters, and 400 stickers. This program can support my students’ creativity in writing and illustrating their stories.  Kid Works Deluxe is especially good in the beginning of the year when student stories are still relatively short. It is easy to create a booklet that students can take home and share with their family. Kid Works Deluxe is an easy program for my students to use and for me to teach.

 One teacher at my school is a big proponent of Inspiration. I agree that it seems like an excellent program for creativity. Her students are a few year older than mine so it may be good for them. I think Kidspiration may be a lot more user friendly for my students as it is the junior edition of Inspiration designed for kindergarten through fifth grade. I watched a tour of it today on their website. It appears to have a lot of great features. It would help my kids learn how to turn a graphic organizer into an outline for their story, because one application does just that. This is exactly the method our school adopted writing program uses. After turning their graphic organizers into outlines a few times on Kidspiration, students should be able to do this on their own. It is a challenge to get students at this age to organize their stories. The visual components of this program allow for student creativity and writing is a creative process. Having a dictionary and thesaurus will also assist me in teaching my students to use these important reference tools.

I am excited about Kidspiration’s math component. Regrouping (borrowing and carrying) is a difficult concept for second graders. I have made a PowerPoint presentation to try to help them with this concept. We also use base ten blocks in the classroom, but it is very time consuming. It looks like Kidspiration illustrates this concept very well for the student. The student needs only to enter an addition or subtraction problem and the base ten blocks are shown and it shows how they are moved to illustrate the solution.

Under classroom ready-made activities there is a writing project called “Writing your first report.” It is a partially completed web that I now plan to utilize to help my students with their animal reports. This very kid friendly simply worded visual document has places to complete information about habitat, diet, locomotion and reproduction. Their animal reports will be one of the main ways my students can use their creativity while   still working on the state standards. I think both of these programs will help me to foster my students’ creativity this year.