Best Ipad apps for your classroom
9:00 AM
Two years ago I was chosen to attend a week long technology workshop. At the end of the week I had in my prize possession
a class set of Ipads! I was super excited and spent the rest of the summer playing around and trying to find apps that were appropriate for my firsties. After using my Ipads for several years now and having my kiddos teach me a thing or two, I would love to share some tips with you.
Best Advice
First and foremost you will have to model and teach students how to use and take care of the Ipads. Grab these Ipad rules for free
Teachers often ask when and how do I make time for these tech moments. I don’t like to try to cram anything extra into my already jam packed day. So for me it has to be purposeful and meaningful and not anything extra. So when I planned to digitally publish my students writing by using Chatterpix, I allowed time during my Writer’s Workshop for students to work on this. Another tech project required students to use Skitch to label and identify plant parts. During our STEM time students uploaded a picture of a plant and labeled the parts. These technology projects make great assessment pieces also, almost like killing two birds with one stone.
Click below to check out our Spookleys
As I discussed at the beginning, I used lots of other apps during the year and will try to blog about those at a later time., but in order to make it more manageable these are the 3 that I really concentrated on using. These 3 apps are user friendly (and teacher friendly) and can be used across all subject areas. I would love to hear how others have used these apps or any other apps that you think are the best
Must have Apps
Chatterpix is a free must have app, that can turn any picture into a talking picture. Students take a picture and save to camera roll. Chatterpix will access the camera roll and allow students to upload their picture. Next they swipe across to make a mouth on the picture. Students press the record button to record themselves and animate the picture. Using Chatterpix is a great way to digitally publish any writing piece.
After reading Spookley the Square Pumpkin students created a Spookley. They wrote about how to be a nice friend. To work on reading fluency students practiced reading their writing to a partner so they would be ready to record their writing. Students used an Ipad to take a picture of their Spookley and saved it to the camera roll.
Chatterpix is great to use across all subject areas. Students can snap a picture of anything you are studying and then record facts, read their writing, or tell all about themselves.
Click below to check out our Spookleys
Skitch is another free app that is easy for young learners to use. Students can label and describe anything using just one or two words. During our plant unit students took a picture of a plant. After saving the picture to the camera roll, students uploaded their picture to the Skitch app. Students labeled the parts of a plant. I used this as an assessment. It is also easy to share this type of data with parents. This app does need a bit more modeling to show students how to draw the arrows and bring up the side menu options, such as text boxes and frames. Skitch is also great for math, students can use manipulatives to represent different sums. Take a picture and use Skitch to show the parts or write the number sentence.
Popplet lite is the third must have app. For primary students. Popplet is a mapping and graphic organizing tool. It is great for students who need a visual representation. Students can insert their own words, images and drawings to describe or tell about almost any subject from science to math. I use Popplet in just about all areas. Students can use this app in Guided Reading to retell a story using beginning, middle and end.. In Science students can upload pictures of the phases of the moon and label each phase. During work on words, my students used Popplet to practice their spelling pattern for the week. Students would put the pattern in the middle and then make words with the pattern in the other boxes.
As I discussed at the beginning, I used lots of other apps during the year and will try to blog about those at a later time., but in order to make it more manageable these are the 3 that I really concentrated on using. These 3 apps are user friendly (and teacher friendly) and can be used across all subject areas. I would love to hear how others have used these apps or any other apps that you think are the best
by The Primary Sisters
0 comments