iPads in the music class? Let me count the ways!

Grades: 2-4
Teacher: Karen Renton
Subject: Yarmouth Elementary School Music
Project Name: iPads in the music class? Let me count the ways!

The iPad has made a powerful presence in the YES classroom this year. Let me tell you about a few of the ways we have been using them. iPads for music learning have come from the Yarmouth Education Foundation (YEF), the Yarmouth Music Boosters and we also borrow the set from the YES Computer Lab.

CLASSICAL KIDS APP – This app is a story telling app that incorporates historical facts about various composers in an interesting part fictional story format, complete with lots of GREAT classical music. We have heard about Tchaikovsky, Bach, and Mozart’s Magic Flute. I find that these stories have worked really well in chapter type format, and also allows me the luxury of resting my voice and being able to step back and watch students.

THE STATES APP – This is very simply a map of the United States and it’s growth since the 1700’s. I used this first when we were learning the 50 Nifty United States song in the 3rd grade. Recently I used this app in the 4th grade when we were learning about the history of African American spirituals. It helped to show the split between the North and the South and the Ohio river, referred to as the Jordan River in so many spirituals.

PIANO GAMES APP – We used this app in both the 3rd and 4th grade when we were learning about beat and tempo. It tied in beautifully with the 3rd graders who study Countries. This app is a game that helps you to learn to play the National Anthems from various countries.

PIANO FREE APP- This app is simply a piano keyboard, and worked really well with the 3rd graders who have been learning to read 3, 4 and 5 note songs on various pitched instruments.

EXPLAIN EVERYTHING APP – This app worked really well with the 4th graders when they were learning how to write BAG songs for the recorder. Not only was it helpful with students that were absent and missed the initial instructions, but this app also allows you to take pictures. I was able to take pictures of all of the songs and then we were able to play all of them as a class! Way cool!

iAUTOHARP – I haven’t had a chance to use this app yet, but I’m looking forward to using this with 4th graders. They will be able to play chords on this autoharp app to accompany others who are playing recorder.

Grade: Kindergarten

Teacher: Amy Finnen

Subject: Kindergarten Explorations on the iPad

So far this year, I have utilized the iPad in several ways. I use the iPad to take photos and post them directly to my Blog. I have downloaded several apps which students access to promote literacy and math skills. Students work with a partner on the iPad during a few scheduled times each day. There is a schedule rotation, so that students know when their turn is. I also can use the iPad along with the class projector to play interactive story books.

Posting to our class Blog directly enhances student learning by facilitating communication between school and home. Even though I think my learning activities are fun and exciting, I know that many students go home and say “nothing”, or “played at recess” when asked what they did at school during the day. When parents and children can sit down and view photos of what we did at school, it provides a springboard for conversation. When children talk about what they learned at school this further cements the learning that occurred. It also builds higher-level thinking skills as students think and talk about their learning.

Students also get direct access to the iPad during the day. Some of the apps that students work on are:

• Spelling Magic 1 (has a moveable alphabet that provides opportunities to build/construct words)
• ABC Pocket Phonics (students trace letters to learn correct letter formation and spell simple words)
• Montessori ABC for Kids (students learn and trace alphabet letters)
• Houghton Mifflin Readers (students can read books at their independent reading level)
• Storia (an eBook app where students can read books on the iPad)
• Bingo (students solve math equations and try to win at Bingo)
• Hungry Fish (students solve addition and subtraction problems)

Some storybooks we have read together are:

• Trees Grin
• Van Gogh and the Sunflowers
• Teddy's Day
• Green Eggs and Ham
• The Cat and the Hat
  
  
  

Science Exploration Recorded on our iPad

Grade: Third Grade

Teacher: Todd Abbott

Subject: Recording Science Exploration with our iPad

Project Description:

We created "rocks" using Epsom salts and container lids. Our panel of scientists will tell you more about that:

Quite impressive, aren't they?  Photos were brought to you by our Class Photographer Paige. Now we know how easy it is to make "How-To" videos using Explain Everything on the iPad!

iPads Growing in First Grade

Grade: First Grade
Teacher: First Grade Team 
Subject: Reading Fluency and Math 
Project Description:

Last year we were able to pilot the use of iPads in first grade at Rowe School through a grant from Yarmouth Education Foundation (YEF). We have purchased additional iPads this fall so that each classroom has a set of four iPads. The teachers worked on App selection and planning for use of the iPads over the summer. 

These are the apps that we have aded to the first grade classrooms this fall:

• ABC Spelling Magic (Short Vowel Sounds) - free
• ABC Spelling Magic 2 (Consonant Blends) - free
• ABC Spelling Magic 3 (Blends & Syllables) - free
• All My High Frequency Words
• Cimo Spelling (Lite)
• DoodleBuddy
• DraftPad
• Futaba- Word games for kids
• iKids Puzzle
• Google Earth
• Know your Math Facts
• iBooks
• LetterSchool
• Little Patterns
• Mathwise - free
• Math Bingo
• Montessori Approach to Addition Charts
• Montessori Approach 100 to 200
• Montessori Approach to 100 Board
• Montessori Crosswords
• Motion Math - Hungry Fish
• Pocket Charts! Beginning Letter Sounds 
• Pocket Charts! Long and Short Sounds
• PopMath Maths Plus
• PuppetPals
• Scribble Press - free
• Sight Words by Photo Touch - free
• Storykit - free 
• Sushi Monster - free
• Tell Time Little Matchups - free
• Telling Time Photo Touch  

We added some apps specifically for teachers. The apps that were free are on all 20 iPads, the few paid apps are only on one iPad per classroom:

• Dragon Dictation - free
• Educreations - free
• Explain Everything
• Pages
• Puffin Browser - free
• Quickvoice Recorder - free
• Show Me Interactive Whiteboard - free
• Skype - free
• The Weather Channel - free 

Most of the apps were available for volume purchase so we bought 20 copies of those for the price of 10. So far we have introduced LetterSchool, Little Patterns, iKids Puzzle and MathWise in classrooms. It is working well to assign five students to each iPad and store any saved games for them when they return. The next challenge is to figure out flexible grouping based on student needs and then appropriately managing the settings for each group.

Fourth grade Book Group makes a Movie

Grade: 4
Teacher: Rosie Lenehan
Subject: Social Studies/Reading
Project Name: Biography

The Marvelous Munchkin book club recently read a biography of Harriet Tubman.  As they discussed Harriet Tubman in one of their meetings, they arrived at the conclusion that when she was alive, Harriet Tubman was relatively unknown.  They were troubled by the lack of recognition that she got when she was alive, especially given all that she did.  We talked about the reasons for this and we also talked about how it is that people become famous.  I gave them some options for individual or group projects they could do around the idea of making Harriet Tubman famous, and they decided to work together on a newscast.  This is entirely student-written, student-filmed, and student-edited, completed in about 2 hour-long blocks.  Also, it was done entirely using an iPad!  Enjoy!

(cross posted at http://room301classpage.blogspot.com/2012/04/book-club-project.html)

iPad Pilot in YES Classrooms

Grades: 3 & 4

Teachers: Rosie Lenehan, Nicole Colfer & Kate Parkin

Subject: All

Project Name: iPad Pilot

It seems like every day there are conversations buzzing about how we can support learning with the single iPads that are in classrooms at YES. The teachers whose classrooms received the YEF grant iPads are using them connected to the projector for whole class instruction, for individual student use and as a center for a small groups of students. Additional teachers are using iPads that are their own.

• One class recorded the field trip to the State House in Augusta by creating aVoicethread using the mobile app. The camera on the iPad made taking pictures easy and then students added narration with audio or video clips to describe what they had learned. The kids seemed to enjoy how easy it was to build the slideshow and the iPad made it possible to do everything on one device. 

• Students are using the ShowMe app to write math procedures and record their descriptions of what they are doing or teachers are creating blog videos for explaining an algorithm.

• Dragon Dictation is helping some students with writing as they can speak into the iPad microphone and the app turns their voice into text. This text can be emailed to the teacher who can help the student continue the document.

Some other thoughts for exploration are spelling apps, voice recording of reading fluency, math practice and TumbleBooks online. Also, we added an "eprint" color laser printer this week in the YES Lab for printing directly from the iPads.

There is excitement in the air as we explore ways to use this "touch" device in ways that supplement and expand the technology access we offer to students at YES.

(cross posted at http://ipadsyes.blogspot.com/)

Grade 1 iPads

Grade: 1
Teacher: Heather Boutin
Subject: All
Project Name: iPads for Learning Pilot in First Grade

What incredibly exciting news!  I am sure that many of you have caught wind that our classroom now has some new technology - the first grade team was awarded a grant from the Yarmouth Education Foundation and each first grade classroom now has two iPads and the Yarmouth school department gave us new projectors and other equipment necessary to make the iPad a useful tool in the classroom.  This technology has really opened our classroom up to a whole new world of learning! 

As you can imagine, the students are ecstatic!  We are in the exploring phase of the iPads and we are learning how to successfully integrate them into our classrooms.  Students will be using the iPad in our listening center to read along with picture books and they will also be exposed to a couple of games that support our spelling instruction.  We have been using the iPad as a tool in math and handwriting lessons and I am very excited to find many more ways to incorporate the iPads!
 (cross posted at  http://boutin105.blogspot.com/2012/01/ipads.html)