Touch a scientist and you touch a child.-Ray Bradbury
October and November are great months in the South. Fall and cooler weather are a nice respite from the stifling hot Charleston summers. It is also a great opportunity to explore fall and harvest in science. There are many ways to create science journals on the iPad. You can use Pages, whiteboard apps, or any number of drawing apps. We’ve been using Doodle Buddy. It is a free drawing app. My students can create a drawing and save to their photo roll. Once created, they can then import the drawing into their writing. We like to import into Pages as well as Book Creator.
Here is an example of one child’s science journal. We were discussing pumpkin life cycles. After reading a book, From Seed to Pumpkin, many students wanted to draw the life cycle in their Doodle Buddy app. From this, the child can type directly on the drawing with the keyboard or he can import it into Pages or Book Creator. Each stage of the life cycle could be broken down into one page each, with this image above being used as the culminating page. This is a great sequencing activity as well.
When I introduced Doodle Buddy, I connected my iPad to the SmartBoard and demonstrated how to use the app and how to save the drawing. It is very simple to use and my students caught on immediately. It always amazes me how engaged they are when they are creating on the iPad. Their language was rich with inquiry and science vocabulary. After creating, they love to share. When they create, they are more likely to internalize important concepts. Critical thinking is occurring. There was no doubt in my mind after looking at their diagrams that they understood this plant life cycle concept.
By having these drawings on their iPads, they are also able to re-visit their work and add to it if interested. Learning is extended and interest is maintained. Even though it is still early in the school year for these young scientists, their enthusiasm for science is evident.
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iTeach with iPads 
Hi Kristi! Love your blog- thanks for all the great ideas! I am having my students take photos and video of our pumpkins decomposing over the weeks as they predict which pumpkin will decompose first. Which app would you recommend putting our photos into and writing everything into? imovie? book creator?
Thanks so much!!
Also, do you know of any research that supports having more than just a class set (4 or 5 ipads) versus 1:1 or even 1:2? Still trying to get more ipads!
Jill
Jill,
I like Book Creator for this. iMovie is good also, especially as a means of presentation. As for research, look at http://edudemic.com/2012/09/5-critical-mistakes-schools-ipads-and-correct-them/. Scroll down to number 4 on the list. I know it’s not technically research, but it does speak to the importance of iPads being single user tools.