Fun twist on homework!

Having my own little first grader inspires me in so many ways, it also "grounds" me.  I can see when the burn outs are coming and the reactions to homework etc when it hits home.  Fortunately for me, my little first grader LOVES everything about school.  Locking herself in her bedroom and playing school is a regular occurrence at our house.  So when she was balking at practicing her spelling I figured most others are too!

This weekend we played with 2 different apps:  Doodle Buddy and Max Doodle.  There was a lot of play involved but we also practiced those spelling words!

Doodle Buddy:

We played with the pens, colors and glitter options.  I dictated a word and she spelled the word for me.  This was lots of fun.  Oh the potential I see in the classroom.  No more dead white board markers!  

Max Doodle:  

With this app we got a little bit more adventurous.  We chose a background picture just for fun, but did not play with pencil options.  This time I was the recorder and she practiced reading her words, another essential part of spelling in grade one.

Our final bit of practice involved me writing again since I wanted to "learn" the app.  We played with the pencils, highlighters, crayons and colors.  

Through this whole process I taught my little first grader all about screen shots as well.  Something we have been working on in my classroom.  She was thrilled with this new discovery and I am finding screen shots of EVERYTHING saved to my camera roll!!!

Tip:  In case you don't know what a screen shot is, it is when you click the home button and the power button at the same time.  The camera takes a photo of whatever is on your screen at that time and saves it to the camera roll.  How fun!

 

screen shots - App to App

Well I just love the Reflections on Technology Blog bookmarked at the side!  I can not take credit for this idea - it is all Mrs. Malchow's, BUT it is working wonderfully in my class and I have finally found a way to implement that Ipad into our calendar time EVERYDAY!

So first I learned how to take a screen shot - I did not know this before!  In case you are like me, it is the home button (circle) and the power button at the same time.  It captures whatever image you have on your screen at the time and saves it to your camera roll.  I can honestly tell you that all 18 first graders could now tell you how to take a screen shot!

So we downloaded the idress for the weather app.  It cost $1.99 and is serving my purpose but I could recommend a few things to make it better.  Anyway I set it to Celcius and changed the weather settings to match us Northern Canadians ( -1 and below is NOT very cold!) lol  Each morning it tells us the temp., shows whether it is sunny or cloudy and tells us what we should be wearing for that kind of weather.  We then screenshot this, and open the picture up in another app called Doodlebuddies (it's a freebie).  We then draw ourselves wearing the appropriate clothes.  It's a little tricky and we are having issues with our text not printing but all in all it is meeting many of our science outcomes in a very techie way!

How does this work with just one Ipad?  Well each morning someone is chosen to do the weather and they go work with our EA on this.  It takes about 10 -15 minutes, depending on how detailed they make their picture.  I love how they are all turning out.

Thanks for the awesome app to app idea!