“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

Well…it has been way too long since I have posted! Life has gotten in the way, but we are back at school and are just finishing up our 20th day. We have been working hard on procedures and routines. These procedures and routines include the use of our iPad devices. We have gotten off to a slow start with them this year as we have had a whole mess of problems with our MDM, but things are getting back on track.

At the beginning of the year, we do not use the iPad for the first full week in kindergarten. I usually like to begin using them the second week, but this year it was the third week before we were actually able to use them. We start off in small groups learning how to open them, navigate screens, find apps, etc. Then we return it to the cart until the next day. As many of my students seem to have an iPad at home, or they were part of our four year old program last year, this was a quick learning curve. We are now able to use them in our math center and in our ABC center. There are two passes in each of these centers. Students are able to choose a pass, if one is available, and work in either the math or ABC folder on the iPad, depending on which center they are in. Each of our apps are grouped by either ABC, math, drawing, or teacher. The teacher folder contains apps that I am not ready for them to access yet.

We’ve used the iPad devices in whole group time to draw a picture of ourselves during our All About Me unit, draw a picture from one of our Pete the Cat books, and we have worked on some math activities with the number frames app. Here are a few samples:

At this point, we are doing what we can with what we have. International Dot Day is coming up and we will be making our mark and creating our own dots to share with our friends in the UK. You can read about that here.

Remember to start small and slow so you can speed up later!