

Children see magic because they look for it. -Christopher Moore
“Stop acting like a child.” How many times have you heard that or said it? The implication is negative, the behavior undesirable. Why is it that society has deemed being child-like as a bad thing? Certainly, some childish behaviors are less than desirable but children have unique vision that adults seem to lose as we age.
Part of that ability to have imagination comes from not being afraid to be wrong. Creativity and imagination spur innovation. What if we could organize and prepare like an adult but think and create like a child?
We just finished a fiction unit on Monsters. We had fun reading several fiction stories such as Go Away Big Green Monster and Glad Monster, Sad Monster. The children’s conversations in centers and in various activities were filled with imaginative scenarios involving monsters all week. This was also a great time to incorporate feeling words and describing words into our mini-lessons. As we made anchor charts with some of these words, the children could refer to them all week in their reading and their writing.
Children are so adept at pretending. They are missing those filters of self-consciousness that adults have so firmly in place. Adults often feel they “aren’t creative” because they have become so adept at avoiding being wrong. I love listening furtively to the conversations that go on in our housekeeping center. The social skills developed in this center are invaluable.
As we worked on our monsters all week, we created our own “feeling monsters” in Drawing Pad, then uploaded them into Pic Collage. Some even went a step further and uploaded their Pic Collage into Explain Everything. (We have finally started our App Smashing!) The iPads allowed us to create and innovate as we added some voice to our writing all week.
All of us, adults and children alike, have the ability to use our imaginations. We tell others, you can do anything you set your mind to…but do we believe it about ourselves? Imagination isn’t just thinking outside of the box. It is acting on those “what if’s”.
In educational times of increased non-fiction requirements, we enjoyed taking a break and delving into monsters. Instead of writing them off as not-real, my students embraced the opportunity to pretend, create, write, and explore “monstrous” possibilities.
We love using our iPads as creation tools. The only limitation is our imaginations. My students found theirs to be of “monstrous” proportions!
Today we will do exciting new things. Let’s get to it!
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. -Albert Einstein
The blank stare…You know, the one that either says, “I have no earthly idea what you are talking about.” or “Why are you telling me this? I already know it.” I suppose there is one other possibility. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?… Utter and complete boredom. Misconceptions and lack of engagement can both derail the learning process.
One of the apps we use really gets to the heart of both of those concerns. I’ve written about Explain Everything before. It really is a robust app. The best part is that it is easy enough for my 5 year olds, yet just as relevant and engaging for older students. I’ve even seen a few adults having a great time creating a screen cast in this app. We used this app weekly last spring. This past week was the first time we used it this school year. We’ve been learning about Spiders in science. My students all drew a detailed spider picture in our Drawing Pad app and saved it to the camera roll. Then they uploaded it to Explain Everything. We’ve been working on labeling like a scientist in our Writing Workshop so they labeled their drawings and then they recorded themselves telling about their work. As I was showing this app to a small group, their eyes widened and they were immediately interested in doing their own. They were very excited and had great conversations amongst themselves as they discussed the length/width of the arrows used to point to their objects. Should it point this way or that? What if they moved this over there? Noticeably absent were questions directed at ME. Even though this was their first time using this app, they were busy figuring things out themselves and working through ideas, thoughts and questions with their peers.
This first time with Explain Everything was very successful. After completing their assignment, they uploaded it to Showbie where I could then see and listen to each one. As the year progresses, Explain Everything will always be one of their go-to apps to share with me what they have learned. As we work on unpacking standards and demonstrating learning, my students have voice and choice in how they want to document what they know.
While iPads are often thought of as a consumptive device, through the use of creation apps, students are able to create their own content. Explain Everything allows students to create both simple and complex presentations in an engaging way in any subject. Our first product this week is more simple but they will become more complex as the year goes on. This is Caitlyn’s Explain Everything:
Want to lose the blank stares? Engage students, get to the heart of what they know and don’t know, and stimulate their minds and their conversations. Any takers? Anyone? Anyone?
Today we will do exciting new things. Let’s get to it!
We are not cisterns made for hoarding, we are channels made for sharing. -Billy Graham
Sorry, but I just can’t get enough of Showbie. It is our new app used school-wide for creating digital portfolios. I recently wrote about Showbie and our using it to create digital portfolios. Since then, I have discovered some other pretty awesome features.
First, let me say, we are not completely paperless. We have, however, significantly reduced our paper usage and Showbie has facilitated that. In kindergarten, there is still the need for paper/pencil skills. School-wide, we saved over $21,000 in paper usage, copies, ink, and toner last year. Showbie has several features that are helpful. Here is a screen shot showing some features:
I have blurred out my students’ last names, but my class list is to the left. The small paper icon to the right of each name shows which students have submitted an assignment. You can also add student pictures beside their names if you want. The shared folder allows me to upload resources, videos, voice instructions, PDF files, and ePubs to be used in that particular assignment. Once the resources are loaded in the shared folder, it is available to all students. It is in the shared folder that I added an ABC book that I created in Book Creator. My students just went into the shared folder, downloaded the book in their iBooks and all students have the book on their bookshelf.
The area to the right has a drop-down box with choices for adding files. The camera option allows photographs or videos. You can upload images from the photo library as well. Using the Capture PDF option, you can scan in a document. If you have a PDF file in your photo library, you can upload this also. In addition, you can add text notes to student work or voice notes. These are all of the teacher options. Students have the same options in their drop-down menu for putting work in the assignment folder.
Last week, I uploaded a PDF of primary lined paper for my students to demonstrate writing their numbers to 20. They opened the assignment in Showbie and then used Good Notes (a PDF annotator) to write their numbers. I was able to quickly email their parents this assignment. Later in the week, I used the camera option to video tape students counting to 20. This was a quick assessment that was also emailed to parents.
The best part is that Showbie is so easy to use. At this early point in the school year, my kindergarten students already know how to open the app and upload work on their own. Parents also enjoy feeling like they are a part of the classroom through the email feature.
One last way we are using Showbie is to share student work with our principal. Each grade level decided on student assignments for each nine weeks that would be used to demonstrate growth and demonstrate CCSS. My principal created a class for each grade level in Showbie. These student provisos are uploaded for him to monitor. We send a high, medium, and low work sample each nine weeks. This allows him to check in on student work on a regular basis. It also encourages meaningful use of the iPad in the learning environment.
We are very excited about the incorporation of this robust program into our classrooms. There is a free version of Showbie if you would like to check it out. We liked it so much we purchased the school license.
Today we will do exciting new things. Let’s get to it!