Main content
Course: Resources > Unit 1
Lesson 4: Khan Academy Kids (Pre-K - 2nd grade)Standards alignment
Khan Academy Kids is an award-winning mobile app for students in Pre-K-2nd grade. Learn how we designed fun, educational activities that cover Common Core State Standards—all with the help of interactive technology. Created by Khan Academy Kids. Created by Khan Academy.
Video transcript
(upbeat piano music) Khan Academy Kids is
an educational program for ages two through seven that's designed to inspire a lifetime of learning and discovery. Khan Kids includes
thousands of activities, lessons and books that cover preschool through grade
one English language, arts and math Common Core standards and social-emotional development. As we design these
interactive experiences, we're constantly asking ourselves, how might we use technology
to enhance the learning for young children beyond what they would otherwise experience? So today, I wanted to
highlight a few examples of standards that we cover in our program and show how they're typically
taught in the classroom with offline methods,
and how we use technology to extend the learning of these concepts. Our first examples around
adding and subtracting within 20 and relating counting
to addition and subtraction. For example, counting on two to add two. One tool used is a number line.
Students need to understand the starting point, the
number of spaces to move, and which direction to move. We created an interactive number line. We show kids how to
find the starting point then count on or subtract from that point by moving Peck the bird. We graphically show the number
of spots moved and the end. We also cover standards
around learning to tell time. There are various tools for
kids to learn how to tell time, they learn about the hour
hand and the minute hand and they have to count by
fives to count the minutes. It's often hard to
connect the relationship between the analog and digital clock. With our clock activity in Khan Kids, our goal was to make
this relationship clear. There's an open ended exploratory mode where you can move the hands of the clock and see how the digital clock changes. In addition to math, we
cover reading standards like orally producing
single syllable words by blending sounds which
are called phonemes. To read words kids need to
understand several things. First, they need to know
the individual letter sounds and they need to understand
how the individual sounds blend from left to right to form a word. teachers often use a
tool called Elkonin boxes like the boxes on the right here to break down the individual phonemes. With technology we can use
real time visual and audio feedback in our tool to
help children understand the letter sounds and
how they blend together even when they don't blend them correctly. - Spell the word "duck" (sounds out word) Oops, this spells "ckud". Try again. Spell the word "duck". (sounds out word) Good job. You spell duck. That's the word "duck." - This next example is a
language standard around frequently occurring
adjectives and distinguishing the shades of meaning
among different adjectives. Offline activities can include worksheets to describe objects like a
monster or fill in the blanks in a sentence. We wanted something that
would bring to light the definitions and
expand kids' understanding of the definitions of
what is an adjective. We created a monster maker
where you can swap out different adjectives and concretely
see how the monster changes. - Make a monster, put a green
adjective on the green line, put a pink adjective on the pink line. Green. Striped. [Monster] - (giggles) - Red. Blue. - Square.
- Yeah! - Round. Awesome! The monster is blue, and round. - Our final example is around
social-emotional learning. Recognizing basic social
problems in books or pictures and learning how to resolve conflicts. There's really no substitution
for the rich interactions and conversations between peers
and with adults that happen on the playground and in the classroom. In fact, we're inherently a
bit limited with technology and don't intend to replace
those real world experiences. We've worked with educators
from the lab preschool at Stanford to understand
common social interactions and interest issues that arise. And we weave these themes
about friendships, patience, and persistence and facing fears into our original stories and books. We have a story about a
mouse who feels left out when his friend Scorpion
makes a new friend. So hopefully that gives you an idea of how we think about harnessing the
power of technology to extend learning experiences for young children. If you'd like to try
some of these activities, you can find Khan Academy
Kids on the app stores. Thanks.