Ceating Rainbow Word templates in Pic Collage

Have you tried Seesaw's unbelievably awesome Activities feature? Since creating a boat-load of Rainbow word cards, literally 3 days before the Activities release, I've been pondering the best, and easiest way to share these words with students since Seesaw only allows one image to be drawn on at a time. I'm sure many of you introduce multiple words in a week and don't want to upload individual words so here's my work around... 

Pic Collage!

Creating templates is simple! Watch the video below to see how to do it so you can customize the templates you need for your students. If you are going to insert these templates into Seesaw, be sure to follow Step 6 by going into your Camera Roll and rotating your image to landscape view so your students will have more room to work on the template.

Need the Rainbow words files? Click here

Want to know how to download the files to your iPad from Google Drive? Click here

Simplistic app smash

Looking for an easy and engaging way for your students to practice their spelling words or high frequency words? 
In our class, kiddos use the Magnetic Alphabet app to place virtual magnetic letters onto a variety of backgrounds to create their weekly words. Students love using the different backgrounds to give each of their pics a little extra pizzazz. Once students have finished creating one of their words, they save their image to the camera roll. After they have all 5 of their weekly words created and saved, they import their 5 images into PicCollage where they can creatively put all of their words together onto one page, change the background and then send to their parents. 

Individualized Spelling

Last week we officially started spelling and in my class each child has their own individualized spelling list. This year we are using an app called, A+ Test, by Alligator Apps to help us practice our words. This app has helped to make individualized lists much easier to manage and has given each child ownership of their lists. 

Student typing in his words
 and recording them.

On Mondays, students first write their words on a paper list to take home. After they are done, they grab their iPad and create their weekly list on the app by typing each word in and then recording each word with their own voice. This has been a neat feature and has taught us that we must speak clearly, loudly, and slowly.

During the week, students have 3 options within the app to practice their words: Practice, Unscramble, and Ace It. Each of these offers a different way for students to practice their words and each utilizes the student's recorded words.

On Fridays we take our test using the app as well. The app will read each word to the student (the student's recorded voice). Students will then write their word on their spelling paper and then enter it onto the iPad. In this way kiddos are still making the transfer of spelling to the written word and practicing their handwriting at the same time, but are also getting practice with their keyboarding skills and how words "look" on the computer. As adults, we often take for granted the simple things such as: when we write we use lowercase letters, however, on the computer the keys are all in caps which can be confusing for our youngest learners. 

After finishing their test, children then send their test to me via email directly from the app which gives me a digital record of their errors which I can track over time if needed. The app also scores their test and gives students the option to go back and retest all of their words or to retest their mistakes. My kids have really enjoyed the immediate feedback of how they did on their test.

fridge magnets

Remember those colorful fridge magnets that scratch up your fridge, fall off and get lost but are sooo much fun? Well now you can play with fridge magnets on the computer....no more lost pieces, no more scratched refridgerator doors but still all the fun! The best part is, as children move the letters around, it will also say the letter name to them.  I love this site!!  For those of us who have SMARTboards,  a version of fridge magnets is in the gallery, but I like this one sooo much better as the letter names are said as the letters are touched or moved.
We will be using this on the SMARTboard during our spelling practice time in the mornings and on the netbooks during our Daily 5 word work time. I will also be introducing it to one of my children who has trouble with letter identification. Using it on the SMARTboard this child will be able to work independently but I will also be able to easily keep an eye on his work. 
I also like the fact that students can print their creations when they are done or save them.
The link is: http://abcya.com/alphabet_number_magnets.htm

Spelling

Teaching first grade has its own set of challenges but for a tech geek, it can be painful. Having taught 2nd grade for the past 5 years I 've been spoiled by what my kids can do. Not to say first graders can't, but it sure takes a lot longer to get them comfortable with the keyboard and how to navigate around. I'm sure as technology begins to infiltrate our lives more and more, this divide if you will, will lessen. I am constantly amazed at what my own first grader and my 4 year old can do, especially on my iPod touch. That being said, I took my class of 1st graders onto a great site called, http://www.spellingcity.com/ the other day. It was our first time on the site and they did a fantastic job typing in the full address and getting their words typed in in a timely fashion. I was so excited as we still had 10 minutes left of our computer time. Well, that's when things went downhill. Once clicking on the game button, nothing would load. Now if you know 1st graders, you know that they are not overly patient but despite that pitfall my class held it together. In the end, we didn't get to play the game with our words but after talking to our LMS, we got the problem figured out, at least for now, and they will get a 2nd chance to try it out today. I'm excited to hear what they and she thought of it as I wasn't able to be part of the group today as we had our team planning time. Nonetheless, the kids proved to me that they are more than capable of doing more than KidPix and that they can follow multistep directions fairly well once they've been shown what to do. I'm excited to see what we can do next and how I can continue to embed technology into our curriculum in a 1st grade appropriate way.