I wrote this blog at the end of last year but I never ended up posting it. I'm going to go ahead and post it now even though it's not "timely" since it's August and school started last week.
Grammar: Mad Libs
It's the end of the year and the kids know their nouns, verbs, and adjectives really well. I project this and let the kids take turns volunteering a word. They have to know their grammar PLUS their singular and plurals. I haven't used this a lot but the few times I have used it they have LOVED laughing at the silly sentence they've made. They love listening for their word that they contributed. They also are getting a chance to say, "That doesn't make sense." I find that determining that can be hard for kindergartners so this is good practice. There are several in-app purchases but there's enough there that you don't have to buy anything for this to be a fun tool at the end of the year.
TIME: Interactive Telling Time Lite - I used this app for time practice. The children passed the iPad around. It speaks a time and the children have to move the hands to make it say that time. I felt like the graphics were slightly babyish, but the kids didn't care. I haven't seen them use this for practice on their own, but it was good for me to do a quick check to make sure all kids could match the spoken time to the time on the analog clock.
Math: Roundom: Decision Maker: I used this app during instruction when we were working on graphs. I let the kids pass the iPad around and "spin" the spinner. You can have 2 or 3 part spinners for free. The kids all had their own blank graphs. As they took turns spinning the spinner they would color in the appropriate line on the graph then we would stop and talk about the comparison between each line. This app doesn't let you personalize much so you're kind of stuck with red, blue, and orange, but they didn't seem to mind. One day I pulled up this app on my phone and let kids pass that around. While I had this projected from my phone I was also able to project the image from the iPad camera that I was using like a document camera. The graph as well as the spinner were being projected at the same time and the kids LOVED it! I let kids come up and fill in the graph while the phone was being passed around. 2 kids were actively involved in the leading of this activity. I was then able to hang out near the kids who needed a little extra help while the others just took over and keep the lesson moving.
If you want further details on anything or just want to talk directly, email me at mrs.mosier@gmail.com! I don't do these justice but it's the best I can do without having video of these lessons.
*I am not being compensated in any way for these reviews. I write these because I want to share my personal experiences with my colleagues. Bottom line, teachers need to support and be supported by fellow teachers because it's what's best for kids.
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