Grandparents Day 2015

Today was our annual Grandparents Day! Grandparents start the day with a breakfast with their grandchildren, and then they are able to join the students in their classrooms. We took this opportunity to show them our Pic Collage skills. Students made a "freestyle" Pic Collage with the help of their grandparents. It was awesome to see the students be the teachers and create a lasting memory. Some of their work is below.

Learning to use Pic Collage

I introduced Pic Collage to my students this week, and they picked it up pretty well! We started with a simple Pic Collage of school supplies. I showed students my example below first.

Then, we worked through the process with their own school supplies. They took the pictures of their school supplies which provided good practice with the camera. Next, we added it to the grid in Pic Collage. The last step was to add the text. They had a lot of fun with this, because they got to choose the font and color. It was also a good opportunity to talk about choosing fonts and colors that are clear and readable with the background :) The last step was to save and Air Drop their collage to me. Below is a student sample.

Now that they had a handle on how to use Pic Collage, it was time to apply it to our learning! We were talking about sequencing this week, so I asked students to work in their groups to put our story cards in the correct order.

Once they had the sequence figured out, each student used their iPad to take a picture of each card. Then, they were instructed to insert their pictures into a Pic Collage in order. They finished up by numbering the pictures and inserting a sentence explaining each part of the story. Below is a student sample.

They finished the lesson by using their collage to summarize the story with a partner. Now that we're experts, we're going to show off our Pic Collage skills to our grandparents next week on Grandparents Day!

iPad Cases

Now that we are using the iPads every day at various times throughout the day, I've noticed the students using various items to prop up their iPads at a more comfortable angle. That got me thinking that maybe we could get stands for them. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the district already had another case with built-in stands for all of the iPads. I requested to have them delivered, and the students are very happy with them! The only downside to them is that in order to use the camera, the students have to remove them from the case. We can live with that though :)

iPad Storage Dilemma

I am struggling to figure out what to do with the storage situation for our iPads. When we got our cabinets, I was relieved that they weren't enormous. However, when we opened them we discovered the iPads were in dish racks with power strips attached (see picture below). Functional, but I'm discovering that it makes putting the iPads away everyday difficult. Ideally, I would like to teach the students the correct way to put the iPads away themselves, but that won't work with the current setup. The racks are very heavy when full, and trying to put them away with the racks inside the cabinet is cumbersome. Ultimately, I decided to ditch the racks and detach the power strips and use paper sorters to keep them upright. I think this system might work better for me. I still have to add velcro to the bottom of the paper sorters, so they don't move around. I would also like to attach the power strips to the walls of the cabinet. Do you have ideas for easy iPad storage in the classroom? I'd love to hear what works for you!

Firsties Taking Selfies!

Big day with the iPads today! Our lesson today revolved around the camera and what it could do. They were hooked when they saw what flipping the camera could do. The lesson culminated with taking a selfie and making it the background on their iPad. The goal was two-fold. First, they learned some new camera skills. Second, the backgrounds will help me pass out iPads much faster instead of having to match a number to each student :)

Using Our iPads!

The students were so excited to actually use the iPads! We started by talking about the parts of the iPad. I found a great little diagram on TpT that guided us through our exploration of their devices. The picture below says it all. They were so quiet and attentive!

You can use the link here to find the iPad diagram on TpT.

iPad Intro

Well, our school year is up and running! It's been a crazy couple of days, but I am anxious to get my students ready to use the iPads. So, we started with iPad rules. I found this adorable set for FREE on TpT! You can find them here. I printed and laminated them and displayed them in my classroom. Now they are there prominently displayed, so I can refer to them as needed.

After going over all of the rules, we took out our iPads and practiced carrying them. We talked about how they should be used at our desks (never too close to the edge) and around the classroom (never left on the floor or unattended). The students were disappointed that we didn't get to actually use them, but I promised them that we will later this week :)