Learning to type

This year for most projects in fourth grade, Ashlyn will have the option to type her report. This is new for her. Because she has to also write everything in cursive in fourth grade, she opted to try out typing the report that was due tomorrow. The assignment was actually a poster board that she had to create with pictures and 15 facts, or complete sentences. So after she collected her 15 facts and pictures, I gave her the rough draft sheet and sat her at the laptop. The first five minutes were excitement! She said, this is going to be so much better than writing it all out and making sure it is all so neat.....after about 20 minutes, she asked if she could take a break. After her short break, the wining started. "This is taking forever!" and "Maybe you (mom) could type a sentence and then I could type a sentence" both filled the air with frustration. Because I had helped her create complete sentences with her 15 facts, I told her she had to type it. About an hour and a half later, it was done....and she is not certain if she will go that route again next time or not. It was a little hard to watch her suffer, but I think it will be good for her to learn typing now. We are looking into some online programs that were recommended to us in second grade to help her learn the keys and type faster. Because this is not taught at our school, we will be learning on our own on Tues/Thurs. We are excited to give it a try and of course, become a little faster :)