| Grade Level | System Requirement | Product Number |
|---|---|---|
| K – Grade 1 | Apple 128K | A255 |
| In this action-packed game, kids move teeth around a game board, “chomping” objects that have the same color, size, shape, design, class, and use. The game can be played with or without the timer.More than 400 graphics and three levels of difficulty for a continual challenge.Chomper’s Club for players with the highest scores. | ||
Introduction
Young children need experiences with practicing classification skills to help them develop the concept of “this is/this is not” a member of a set. With this understanding firmly in hand, children can apply classification skills in reading, mathematics, and science. Children’s early formal experiences with classifying objects begins with their extensive use of manipulatives, which gradually helps them to use written materials such as workbook pages.
The computer offers a unique opportunity for encouraging students’ development of classification skills. The computer provides a rich environment where a large pool of graphics is available to children for comparison and classification. They can classify a wide variety of objects shown graphically, which would be time-consuming and sometimes impossible to assemble in a classroom. In addition, the computer can provide numerous combinations of objects, presenting familiar objects in new contexts. This helps students refine their classification skills and recognize that an object can belong to different groups.
Picture Chompers is a set of six programs designed to provide kindergarten and first-grade students with opportunities to strengthen their classification skills according to color, size, shape, design, class, and use. In addition, the programs help students sharpen their ability to visually discriminate objects.
Students can exit a program by pressing the Escape (Esc) Key whenever the program is waiting for a response. Sound may be turned on or off at any time by typing Control-S (press the S Key while holding down the Control Key).
Picture Chompers is a product from MECC’s Early Learning Series. This series includes software packages designed for preschool to second-grade children. Each package covers a specialized topic in mathematics, language arts, or music. The following matrix outlines the products in this series.
Program Details
Title: Picture Chompers
Grade: K-1
Subject areas: Mathematics, pre-reading
Program type: Educational game
Hardware: Apple II series computer with 128K of memory and one disk drive; color monitor highly recommended. If your students use a monochrome monitor, they should not use the Color program or the Design program.
Classroom use: Individual student
Learning objectives:
- to identify objects that are the same color as a target object
- to identify objects that are the same size as a target object
- to identify objects that are the same shape as a target object
- to identify objects that have the same design as a target object
- to identify objects that are in the same class as a target object
- to identify objects that can be used in a target activity to visually recognize differences and similarities in objects