iPad, youPad, weALLPad

You may have heard rumblings about a shiny new friend in our classroom last week, those rumbling might have sounded like this "AHHHHHH ASKJAJKDLKD iPAD!!!!!" Or maybe that was just the response in our classroom when I brought our new friend Paddington, or Learny, or Techie Ted, or PadPad (the jury is still out on the name I'm leaning toward Learny Paddington the Techie Pad-Pad but we'll see) the iPad in.
My reasoning for getting the iPad was that we have so many students who work at different paces, some finish REAAAALLY quickly and others need extra time, my go to response when one of the students asks what they should do next has always been "Read a book" but at this point in the year many of the kids have read and reread and rereread the same books during that down time and I realized that while they were doing something productive and using those reading skills, they weren't  really gaining any knew knowledge or being challenged. I tried find more practice activities for them to work on but I wasn't really happy with that as an option because it felt like I was punishing them for being quick workers so that went out the window very quickly.

Enter the iPad, I did some research on the best apps for classroom use and found that there are so many more than I would have ever thought. Now I watch for responsible students who are working hard and following directions and I put them on my list to use the iPad during seatwork time, when they have finished all their work. Usually the time is limited to about 10 minutes a person to try and share with as many of the students as possible, of course not everyone will get it everytime but I am making it my goal to make sure everyone gets some time with it each week. I have even used it in one of our reading groups when we did some super stellar reading and finished way early.

I know that some of you have your own iPads and tablets at home so I wanted to share with you a few of the apps we are using and invite you to let me know of any your student enjoys that I might want to check out.

1. Money Math












I like that this app has a variety of activities from practice adding coins, to making change, and using the least number of coins. This one appears to be only available in itunes.

2. Scholastic Storia
I like this app for our room because it takes ebooks to the next level with activities, questions, and games in the story. This helps with comprehension skills.

3. Phonics Genius
This app sorts words  by their vowel/special sounds and displays them as it reads them.








There is also a feature that allows students to record themselves reading the words to compare their reading to the readers on the app. I haven't yet figured out how to use that function yet.

4. Happi and The Pirates
This game uses spelling, math, and puzzles for a challenging game to find buried treasure.






5. Stack the states
Even though we are just learning about the states and we haven't gone into too much detail about them yet this app helps them learn to recognize the states and provides interesting trivia along the way.




We have a few more apps that we haven't been able to explore yet but the kids have been so eager to play the games even the challenging ones. I am really encouraged by their excitement.

Have a blessed weekend.