Children's Books on the iPad

A kindergarten lesson often has a book to accompany it, so a search on iTunes commenced to look for free children's books. I am a printmaker/bookmaker, so my love for books runs hardcore, but I liked this experience of using an e-book for a few reasons.  First, I like that the students have some ownership of the experience.  Flipping pages, pace, and listening to it over again was in their control.  Next, the book was interactive.  It asked the students to participate in the story.  They painted the dog's paw prints and found the frog under the leaves.  Finally, there is a management advantage.  My classes run back to back with no minutes in between.  I needed to get paint poured and had no time during my previous classes.  While students sat in groups of two or three listening to the book I was able to get paint ready so there was no wasted time.  A huge bonus during a 40 minute class!  While getting all the colors ready, I noticed the kindergarten students really experienced joy while listening and interacting with the book.  Teacher and students were happy!

Once students were finished with the book and materials were ready, we regrouped on the carpet and talked about the story.  At the end of the book there is a rainbow and this flowed into our lesson of painting a ROYGBV rainbow.  Next class students practiced cutting zig-zag and curvy lines from great worksheets I found on Pinterest and then cut out and glued their rainbow lines to black paper.  My first class drew the lines themselves, and while the results were much more unique, many students struggled because their self drawn lines where to intricate to cut out themselves.  For the second day, I drew curvy and zig-zag lines on the back of the paper and students felt much more confident about their cutting skills.  Check out our results on Artsonia!

What e-books have you found or do you use?!?!?!

Kindergarten read Stella and Sam Rainy Days and Rainbows

 

I drew curvy and zig-zags lines on the back.

Students drew their own curvy and zig-zag lines.

A Project During Our Project: Monsters Invade Our School!

Fifth grade was working on a printmaking project and I only had a small amount of cutters and more importantly, bench hooks.  What to do with the other half of students?  This is why I love having iPads!  Low materials but high on results.  A perfect double project maker!

Every fall I do a small unit on fear.  I found this Eye Paint Monsters app and knew the kids would have a chance to play and experiment!  It's a touch and shoot app.  The monsters are already drawn and the students take pictures to fill in the empty areas.  To enrich the app, I added the concept of textures and the monster had to be in our school.  I like that you can edit your picture after saving it.  If students wanted to use people, (such as the principal being attacked by bats!) they had to take two pictures so one could be published on Artsonia.  No peeps allowed on the site.  To make two photos, it's as simple as taking the first photo, saving it, and repeating the process for the second photo.  I had a box full of fabrics including fur, lace, and netting for the students to photograph.  Some students even used textures they found around the school and the clothes they were wearing.  They like experimenting with the camera and using perspective to place the monster in just the right pose.  The monster could be big or small, depending on the perspective. Eye Paint Monsters was a great one day project that students were enthusiastic about, help us while having wait time on another project, and results were entertaining to the whole school!

Monsters are invading our school!

If a student took a picture with a person, they had to take a second picture.
The picture below is by the same student. 

This monster is tiny and standing in a students hand.
The students enjoyed playing with perspective.

Don't mess with our cook! 

All monsters are on Artsonia

Maybe this guy is blogging?!

All in One for Digital Photography

Today fourth grade students rocked out a digital photography lesson!  I am very excited about the process and results.

We started our journey into pop art by painting simple drawings of presidents found on Crayola's website.  Students used three to four fluorescent paints. (I am really impressed with Crayola's Premier Tempera! I think the extra few dollars is worth it for the fluorescent colors.)  I'll publish the results of this project on artsonia soon!  We also did research about pop art and artists using the iPad.  I blogged about this earlier.

Students used Photoshop Express
to edit photographs.

With this foundation, we reviewed the meaning of pop art and I asked the students to think of popular images they saw just in our elementary school world.  We talk about logos that they see all the time, school celebrities, and specific items that are a part of their everyday life here at school.  I wanted them to find items that are not always considered art and to turn them into art. (I do want to say that the Mona Lisa photo is part of our world as a celebrity.  I use the "I say Mona... you say Lisa" at part of my classroom management. The students have to then strike the Mona Lisa pose, so she is quite the celebrity here! Curriculum is always about the students' world to help them make meaning!)  

I have ten iPads, so the students worked in groups and each group created one final piece.  I went through the process on the projection screen and then students worked from a packet listing step by step instructions with screenshots. You can see the step by step packet here.  Before starting we also talked about saturation, contrast, and really making our selected object the focus of our photograph.

What I loved the most about the iPad today was that the whole lesson used one piece of equipment.  No plugging camera's into a computer or buying photography software.  With the ease of doing everything on the  iPad, my students were able to complete this project in one 40 minute class period.  It amazed me!  

See more results on Artsonia

The photo booth I made.
iPads and recycle copy  paper boxes! Quite a contrast! 

Pop Art President

Using the iPad to Answer "I'M FINISHED!"

    Do you ever have some students finished with a project and others still working?  I do! The last thing I want to do is get them ahead again on starting the next project.  At first, I was giving these students a chance to use some apps on the iPad.  I let the students use apps like Pottery HD Lite and Faces iMake, but then I noticed students rushing their projects to use the iPad, and were they really getting anything out of using these apps so casually?

     Students were finishing a Pop Art project this week and we didn't have a lot of class time to talk about all the many artists that encompass pop art.  How was I going to get this information to them and still make forward progress?  The iPad answers my dilemma once again!  On my website that I design with Weebly, I linked websites and videos of artists.  Students brought their own earbuds to class that day and were instructed to do Pop Art research!

     This solved many problems!  Students who were behind got caught up.  They have a chance to do the research on their own time if they choose because the material is all available on my website.  These students also didn't rush their projects to use the iPads.  Students using the iPad could share more easily than when they were using an app and were less distracting to the students finishing up their work.  I also felt like they were working on something that was adding to their learning experience, and not just buying time.  Overall, it was a productive day in art today for all my students!

Students found the link and videos on my website .

Choice and Research with the iPad

 For the past four years, I have had third grade students create Ohio wildlife animals out of clay.  They also create habitats where playing with materials is encouraged.  Tissue paper turns into a pond and pom poms become rocks.  We even had a nest built in a paper tree for a bald eagle one year!

Each year I have difficulty getting the students to understand what exactly a wildlife animal is and is not.  There is always someone who wants to do a dog or horse.  It takes an inspirational talk for them to understand a stray dog is not exactly what we are going for (although I adopted my own daschund!)

This year, with the power of the iPad and wireless newly installed in my classroom, the students were able to do their own research.  I sent them to the Department of Natural Resources website for Ohio where there was an A-Z species guide.  Students choose their own animal and saved the picture to photo library.  They just touch the picture, and a SAVE IMAGE button appears.  Couldn't be easier!  Each student picked their own animal and wrote down the name.  Then students used a search engine to find more photos for different angles and a close up on the head.

https://www.dropbox.com/

Images were then downloaded into the Dropbox app and immediately appeared onto my computer.  Dropbox has been working extremely well for the transfer of pictures and documents from the iPads to my computer.  I printed them out (I'm lucky to have a colored printer) and laminated them.  I can already tell the results of our project are going to be the best yet, and we will have a greater variety of animals represented instead of the same ten I would have printed off for them.  Students have more information to create with and have a sense of ownership by doing their own research.  To watch our progress on this projects and others visit our school blog!    
 

I'm excited to see how the painting improves from having their own resources to look at!

Every student assumes they know what a turtle looks like, until they can really see it in photographs! 

Multi-functionality

Well, the iPads are on their way. I bought Apple's 10 pack they offer to educators with the Apple Care Plus. I wrote the grant before the New iPad came out, so I actually had asked for more than the price they are now. Technology works that way! With the money gained from the price difference we looked into getting Apple TV but the hook ups didn't quite work out. Instead, I opted for a digital visualizer. I got the Ladybug and it has changed the way I teach. I've only had it for a few days, but it makes such a difference when students can watch you demo up close on the screen. I know every single student has the same opportunity to see and I have a much clearer view of the kids for classroom management. Last school year I was teaching 5th grade about perspective and I needed this set up. What did I turn to? But of course, the multi-functional iPad! All it took was a VGA hook up to my computer monitor and a file box, for height. What can't the iPad do?