Amazing Apps for Every Grade Level at Holy Trinity School

During the 2012-13 school year, as we piloted using iPads in every classroom at HTS, our teachers and students sampled hundreds of Apps.  Many were fantastic, others not so much :)  At the end of the school year, it was time to clean house, so the teachers were asked which Apps they would like to keep for the 2013-14 school year.  The incredibly organized Mr. Clark has spend the past few weeks getting all the iPads updated for the next school year, and we thought our school community might enjoy taking a peek at the Apps that have made the cut.  Keep in mind our list will evolve a bit as the summer progresses...
PreK-K iPads

• Addition Wiz Free**
• All About Letters Interactive Activities
• Bob Books #1 - Reading Magic HD
• Bob Books #2 - Reading Magic HD
• Cimo Spelling (Sight Words)*
• Don't Let the Pigeon Run this App*
• Elmo Loves ABCs for iPad
• Fish School HD - by Duck Duck Moose
• Freefall Spelling
• I Like Books - 37 Picture Books for Kids in 1 App
• Kids Learning to Read - Little Reader 3 Letter Words*
• Letter Writer Oceans (Preschool ABC's)
• Little Solver - Preschool Logic Game
• Math with Mouse
• Monkey Math School Sunshine
• Monkey Preschool Lunchbox
• Montessori Numberland HD
• Musical Paint
• Park Math HD - by Duck Duck Moose*
• Raz-Kids**
• Scribble my Story - A Fingerprint Network App**
• Skitch**
• Starfall ABCs
• Starfall Learn to Read*
• TeachMe: Kindergarten
• TeachMe: Toddler
• Word Magic*

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.

Pinterest for Summer Learning

My daughter introduced Pinterest to me last year as a site to pin fabulous fashion, design and travel ideas.  If you aren't familiar with the site, it's an online bulletin board, where you can post links to articles, photos, quotes and ideas.  It's SO much fun, and completely addictive.  So much so, that I had to give it up for a while.  It wasn't helping me get through my to-do lists.

Educators around the country have adopted Pinterest as a great way to share ideas, projects and websites... so the good news is, I now have an excuse to peruse Pinterest for teaching ideas.  Perhaps I can convince my higher-ups it counts as a teaspoon or so of professional development...

Article Alert: The Touch Screen Generation - How Children Use iPads (and a list of suggested Apps!)

My flight was delayed on the way home from Spring Break in Florida yesterday, so I set out to buy a pile of magazines to pass the time.  Though I was briefly tempted by People Magazine's account of how Kate Middleton's pregnancy is progressing, the cover story of the Atlantic magazine caught my eye as a slightly more useful read: "The Touch Screen Generation: How Children Use iPads," by Hilary Rosen.  It's a fascinating piece for parents of young children (and their teachers!)  The link to the article can be found here.

Rosen says: "Norman Rockwell never painted "Boy Swiping Finger on Screen" and our own vision of a perfect childhood has never adjusted to accommodate that now-common tableau. Add to that our modern fear that every parenting decision may have lasting consequences—that every minute of enrichment lost or mindless entertainment indulged will add up to some permanent handicap in the future—and you have deep guilt and confusion. To date, no body of research has definitively proved that the iPad will make your preschooler smarter or teach her to speak Chinese, or alternatively that it will rust her neural circuitry—the device has been out for only three years, not much more than the time it takes some academics to find funding and gather research subjects. So what’s a parent to do?

Learning A-Z and RAZ Kids

Once upon a time, many years ago, my youngest son was struggling to learn to read.  In retrospect, I think it was simply a case of finding the block corner and any opportunity for imaginary or active play far more interesting than the storybooks in his classroom, but he was a bit behind his classmates, and his teachers were becoming concerned.  So, during the summer between first and second grade, his teachers encouraged us to read to him A LOT, and work with a series of leveled readers that could be found online using the website Reading A-Z.   This is such a fantastic resource.

Tumblebooks and Bookflix!

Tumblebooks are wonderful animated online picture books.  I have previewed a number of them, and I suspect our students will find them as engaging and fun as I do.
It is possible to access Tumblebooks through many local library systems including Fairfax County and DC. The link to access Tumblebooks through the DC Public Library site is here:  http://www.dclibrary.org/kids/videobooks

(you can also find the link to Bookflix there, which I describe below)

A Pair of Great Guides for IPad Users - And a Prezi

Usually, I only post to the Summer Learning Blog during the summer, but I just posted the following entry to the blog for teachers that I maintain during the school year.  The items I mention below are fantastic, and I suspect parents that follow this blog might also be interested in these resources for educational iPad apps... so here goes.  Parents, comment below if you'd like me to continue to share items like this during the school year...

Earlier this week, I received a pair of super-cool guides in my inbox that I'd like to share:

First, Edutopia published a booklet titled:  Mobile Devices for Learning: What You Need to Know... Getting kids engaged with learning, focused on working smarter and ready for the future.  This guide is jam-packed with ideas - especially for our iPad users.

In his "GeekDad" Blog for Wired, Daniel Donohoo sums it up this way: "Along with the usual app recommendations, the guide offers some analysis that looks at the positives, but also the challenges, of using mobile devices to support learning. It presents a wide range of diverse resources for teachers and parents to access as they undertake a journey to using technology to support learning. The whole process can also be overwhelming, so the guide doesn’t feel like it has excessive information, but instead acts as a launching pad for those interested in exploring how these devices can be used with students both inside and outside the classroom."

Plus, it is free. Of course, free these days means signing up to the Edutopia site, but if you do you’ll find the complete guide at http://www.edutopia.org/mobile-learning. 

Send your kids to Virtual Summer Camp with Common Sense Media

Before we get to the part about the nifty Virtual Summer Camp...

I believe that every parent needs to know about the resources at Common Sense Media.  I wrote about this organization last summer, but in case you are new to the blog, Common Sense helps parents sift through the vast sea of websites, apps, computer games, television shows, movies and books to identify which are appropriate for children at every age group - and why.  I have found that it is a handy resource when one of my own children is begging to buy a game or watch a movie that is not even close to age-appropriate... I'll just pull up the review and tick off the reasons why they'll need to make another choice.  It also helps parents navigate the world of Social Media once their kids hit the 'tween and teen years.  Check out the website on http://www.commonsensemedia.org/   I suggest you subscribe to the weekly parent newsletter.

Common Sense Media has a new learning ratings initiative that will evaluate the learning potential of websites video games, and mobile apps. As part of this new initiative, the creative geniuses of this organization have created a Virtual Summer Camp Guide, as they thought: What better way to orient skills than around camp themes?  I couldn't agree more. This guide has 50+ recommendations with the highest Learning Ratings for kids age 2-17.  The themes include: outdoor exploration, arts and crafts, scavenger hunt, campfire friends, and more.  There are also great tips and activities that you can use to support your kids as they sharpen their skills.

Download the Summer Learning Guide here.

If you find any particularly amazing games, please let me know by commenting below:

10 Recommended Apps from our Early Childhood Students

This year, thanks to our generous parents, we were able to pilot iPads with our Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st graders.  Each class received five iPads loaded with (only!) educational apps, and the children played with these apps during center time.  When I walked in to classrooms with these new gadgets after Christmas break, I found I had an immediate hobbit-sized fan club - the kids LOVE iPads.  Everyone involved was impressed by how engaged the kids were while learning basic building blocks in language arts and math. The EC team met earlier this week to discuss the program, and among the topics discussed were classroom favorites, as we look to build our library of "apps that work" for next year.  So, in no particular order, I offer you the favorite educational apps among the littlest students of HTS during the spring semester of 2012:

(All apps can be purchased from iTunes or the AppStore, and many can be run on iPhones in addition to iPads)

1. Don't Let the Pigeon Run the App

This app is more than simply an online story book - it lets children create their own Pigeon stories with their pal, Mo Willems.  Our pigeon-loving students loved the creative possibilities of the three games on this App.


2. Super Why

This was a huge favorite among the younger set. Based on the PBS series, this app offers four games: Lickety Letter Hunt, Wands up Writing, Rhyming Time and Story Saver.  The children love the graphics, and are able to earn stickers as they successfully complete the games.  Stickers are a big deal for these kids :)


3. Math Bingo

This game offers the option to practice math facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division... or a mix of all problems. It was very popular with our 1st graders this year, who loved the quirky little creatures that took up residence on their bingo boards.  It is possible to set up a player profile, so you can see which problems your child is solving correctly.

4. Word Bingo

This was a huge favorite among our first graders, but it is possible to set leveled word lists from Pre-Primer through 3rd grade.  Like Math Bingo, the kids found love the critters on the bingo board. Beyond the bingo game, the app also offers a spelling practice options.

5.  Teach Me Kindergarten

The children loved to earn stickers while learning important kindergarten skills such as addition, subtraction, sight words and spelling.  It is possible to set specific topics for the children to work with.


6. Teach Me First Grade

Again, earning stickers was very motivating to our students while they learned all-important skills such as addition, subtraction, sight words and spelling.  It is possible to set specific topics for the children to work with.


7. Bobo Explores Light

Mr. Denny reported that this was a huge favorite in his 1st grade class.  The Bobo Explores Light iPad book takes fundamental science concepts for school-age children, and injects them with humor, astonishment and whimsy.  It is truly wonderful.


8. Pirate Trio - Love to Count

This lovely, engaging British game introduces numbers as being the indicators of order, time, weight and quantity.  Parents are provided a tracking screen which is helpful for evaluating a child's progress.  The kids love this game.


9. Pirate Trio - Love to Read

The companion to Love to Count is an app inspired by Montessori teaching methods designed to lead children through the steps of getting to know words and understanding how to apply them. The child shakes the iPad or iPhone to scatter the letters, and the challenge is to put the letters back into place so the word is re-constructed again.  This was a favorite in the kindergarten and PreK.

10. Little Matchups - Count Money 

OK, I'll be honest.  This wasn't one of our student's favorite games, but a game that speaks to an area of weakness for many of our students.  The "Little Matchups" games are very visually appealing and easy to use for the kids.  Be sure to explore others by this game designer.


We'll be hunting for great new apps to introduce in the fall, so let me know if you discover any wonderful new titles.