Digital Fun for Creative Kids

Our friends at Common Sense Media have released their annual summer treasure trove of ideas for digital fun, and this year creativity is king:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/guide/digital-fun-for-creative-kids

One of the things I love about the Common Sense website is that they carefully assess each app or website with age levels in mind, which makes it easy for parents to evaluate what is best.  In scanning some of the suggestions, I am so comforted to know that the folks at Common Sense agree that all that time my boys have spent on Minecraft and Civilization is actually educational...

The guide offers a number of suggestions for crafting and creating art, storytelling, coding, creating media and building.   Sounds like hours of fun to me (as long as it is mixed in with a good bit of physical fun as well!).  Be sure to leave a comment if you have found a particularly amazing app or website you would like to share...

15 Apps we can't live without at HTS

A few months ago, a team of HTS teachers gathered for an informal dinner to chat about how we're using the iPads in our classrooms this year -  and how we'd like to evolve into using iPads for even more project-based work next year.  

Across the school, we have sampled a huge number of Apps with our students.  We set out to identify and share the Apps we can't live without. 

Catherine and I plan to write a series of blog posts over the next few weeks to identify lists of Apps that with specific grade levels in mind, but thought we'd start with our across-the-board teacher faves.  

Please let us know if you have any personal favorites you have discovered with your kids!

Language Arts:

1. Starfall - Our Early Childhood crew loves this App! There are 15 mini-books, each focusing on a specific vowel, along with videos and activities to enhance literacy learning...Kids can learn to make that difficult transition from knowing their letters and letter sounds to actually reading. Starfall Learn to Read provides great features to help kids of differing skill levels. If kids are struggling, they can tap on a word to hear it sounded out and see each part of the word highlighted. If kids are pre-readers, they can tap on the sound icon to hear the sentence read aloud. With each mini-book, kids get exposure to the target sounds with plenty of repetition. Starfall's Learn to Read, with its well-designed books and activities, is an excellent tool for helping kids boost skills. (Thanks to the amazing team at Common Sense Media for part of this review.)

Just Keep Typing... Part Two

Summer is a great time to work on keyboarding... especially because so many typing programs these days are actually a ton of fun.  (Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I actually learned to type on a typewriter with the keys blacked out, and let me tell you, it was no fun at all :)

I wrote a blog entry on keyboarding last summer that highlighted a number of our top programs - BBC Dancemat Typing being my personal favorite.  A number of other ideas have landed in my inbox over the past few months, and I'd like to share them with you.

One of my best resources for techie ideas is the fabulous Free Technology for Teachers blog.  One of these days I need to send blogger Richard Byrne a batch of chocolate chip cookies or something to thank him for keeping me up to date on the latest in educational technology - he makes me look smart!

 Richard has suggested a number of other options to explore, and I have included a number of them below.

Typing Adventure is a web-based program that is designed for ages 8 and above that looks to make keyboarding fun. Over 70 lessons, practices and tests are available with a subscription... the good news is that there is a free 30-day trial available for parents.

A Pair of HTS Summer Programs

We would like to announce two new programs to held by HTS teachers this summer:

Vic Gallerano will be conducting two workshops:

Intensive Writing Skills for rising 6th, 7th and 8th Graders - Thursday, June 20th - Wednesday, July 3rd (1pm to 3pm at HTS)

Writing the High School Application Essay - Monday, July 8th through Friday, July 19th (1pm to 3pm at HTS)

Details can be found on this flyer or by contacting Mr. G on vgallerano@htsdc.org

Polly Sileo will be conducting a Virtual Summer Math Program.

Details can be found on the flyer or by contacting Ms. Sileo on psileo@htsdc.org

In case you have missed it, a list of local summer programs and Holy Trinity tutors can be found on Holy Trinity's Summer Information Page.