6 Ways to Effectively Use Pic Collage

I have been in many classrooms since October that are fairly new to using iPads in their classrooms.  After the first initial lesson on "iPad Norms"  A great app to start with is Pic Collage.  I really like this app because there are so many uses, very simple to use and it is free!  Here are a few ideas on how to effectively use Pic Collage in your classroom. Use Pic Collage in Math: Download Here Download Here Download...

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A Fun Lesson to Teach Addition using a Read Aloud, iPads and the Book Creator App

Last week I was in a grade 1 Classroom that was at the beginning stages of adding.  This made me think of a great lesson Karen Lirenman had done with the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab (counting by feet book).  I immediately told her about the lesson and we planned to co - teach it the following day.  While I read the story, Mrs. Dadd created an anchor chart of all of the characters in the story and the children...

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Using a Drawing App To Show Thinking

As we are still in the first month of school, I have many primary teachers ask me, "What app should I begin with first or where do I begin to implement my new iPads?"  I like to start with a drawing app.  The reason for this is that it is an app that does not require previous iPad use.  All ability levels will enjoy using a drawing app and you can build onto this app by exporting your students' pictures into other apps to label, record...

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Primary Blogging Community Registration is OPEN

The Primary Blogging Community is currently accepting classes that blog for the October rotation.  The last rotation was a huge success with over 80 classes participating from all over the world. Here is a brief description of what the blogging community is: What is the Primary Blogging Community? The PBC is a community of primary teachers (K-4th grade) that want to share their students' learning via their classroom blog and their...

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Teaching and Assessing Reading Comprehension with Explain Everything

This past year, I really focused on explicitly teaching comprehension strategies to my students.  I taught how to reread a text, annotate a text, leaving tracks of thinking while reading, questioning techniques and most importantly, instilling in my students that reading is thinking. We used Padlet walls to show our thinking, we drew pictures and wrote information digitally as I read aloud, we used today’s meet to make our thinking...

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Tips and Tricks for Creating Authentic iPad Learning Stations for Primary Students

A few weeks ago, I did a workshop on Creating Authentic iPad Learning Stations for Primary Students.  I thought I would share some of the things that I spoke about and some of the key points that I tried to get across in my workshop. First, an iPad Station does not consist of handing a child an iPad, putting them on an app and letting them click away.  Come on people, aren’t we past this by now?  In the past, I have had colleagues come...

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Must Have Apps for My Classroom

I have many emails from teachers that are just starting to use iPads in their classrooms about what apps I would recommend.  I have to admit that the apps I loved 3 years ago are the pretty much the same ones I would recommend today.  I do need to stress that these apps alone without teacher direction and curriculum goals will not magically improve your test scores or your students writing levels.  There is a lot of thought in the...

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