Tech Tuesday - A Few Favorite iPad Apps

Long ago, I surrendered to the fact that my iPad is "our" iPad. Good or bad, immersion in technology is part of life today and sorting through the muck is a teachable moment. I wanted to share a few of my favorite apps, many of them we enjoy as a family - especially Toontastic (more on that later).

With iPads becoming so prevalent in early elementary classrooms, I've been excited to see engaging apps that go beyond the rote drill games seen in previous years. Here is a sampling of what is installed on my iPad at the moment:


GROW YOUR GARDEN

Finally! A math program without a flashcard feel to it. I love puzzles and those looking for an excellent edtech infusion for their math program should check this one out. This is a really engaging logic puzzler game. The automatic difficulty progression works well, but there are no hints which might frustrate some kids. The flowers placed in your garden as rewards are kind of hokey - but in a good way, Claire eats it up! The completed number sentence/equation flashes on screen as the operation is complete but is not an integral part of the experience. Simple concept, elegant execution. I really like this application.

(3 - 1 + 3 = 5) This is a screenshot from one of the first levels

READING RAINBOW

It's not often I cough up money for an app, but the 6 month subscription I purchased for full access to all Reading Rainbow's books and videos has been worth every cent. Claire loves being read to and has a voracious appetite for new material. With literally hundreds of books in this app, neither of us have grown tired of it. I appreciate the quality of books RR has chosen to feature, it is a well curated collection with diverse illustration styles and topics.

The interface is fantastic, there are different "islands" to fly in your hot air balloon each featuring a different genre of books. I grew up watching Reading Rainbow on PBS and this is a wonderful crossover to a new platform...but as LaVar would say:

"Don't take my word for it!"

TOONTASTIC

I cannot get enough of this app. If I was back in the classroom I would have this program in the hands of each and every one of my students. Storytelling is just the tip of the iceberg here - which the capability to animate and narrate a multitude of characters and places (including hand-drawn creations) this app has possibilities outside the realm of language arts. The only thing missing is the capability to export files. Boohoo!



A few others that I'll write reviews for in the coming days: Leo's Pad, MOMA Art Lab, Umi Numbers and Bob Books Magic. Happy "Apping!"

Celebrating Math with Children - Happy Pi Day!

flickr user mag3737, Tom Magliery

On a day where so many are celebrating one of the most recognizable math mathematical symbols out there - I wanted to take a second to point some of you in the Northeast to a new children's museum celebrating math in New York City. 

Don't picture galleries of ancient slide rules and walls filled with retired models of TI calculators (my friends and I used to exchange notes on ours during math class, sorry Mrs. Sealock), the reality of MoMath is far more exciting.

Here's a video from CBS all about the museum:

And in case you were wondering, my favorite math experience was coursework in college in Discrete Math. All those P's and Q's and logic tables just "clicked" with me. How about you?

Valentine's Day Activities

Looking for some unique ways to celebrate Valentine's day? Here are a few of our favorite activities from the archives.

                    

Winter Woods Trek

Hooray for snow! Just enough snow fell that we were able to enjoy its beauty without grumbling about cold toes and plowing woes.

Above is a picture out our living room window of our "frog pond." Remember the tadpoles we watched develop in the spring? They are now sound asleep in the muck at the bottom of the pond, I'm sure they're enjoying their long nap!

Independent Creativity

I've been nursing a nasty tooth infection that led to a root canal and a few days of some pretty strong painkillers. I'm off all the crazy stuff now, but still a bit sore so I have been sleeping in a bit and not the most "present" of parents.

Ping-ping the penguin here to cheer me up. Love his flipper feet!

Claire presented me with this "get-well" gift two days ago and I'm just so tickled by her creativity. See the clothespins and the bits of torn green streamer paper? The shiny foil carefully folded just-so in the corner? Aren't kids just amazingly creative when you provide materials without direction?

I'm always impressed when materials are used in new ways. Take Anastassia Elias, sure I've seen lots of crafts with toilet paper rolls. We've done our fair share here -- snowflake ornaments, owls and birdfeeders. I so admire Anastassia's ingenuity -- who thinks to create tiny little worlds inside a tube of toilet paper?!

We need more creativity. And not just in art. Creative thinkers are problem solvers -- inventive and ingenious.  I can't help but think that if we encourage expression in the arts at a young age - a space and forum where children can mold, shape and showcase their ideas - that it will bleed over into other fields as they age and choose their life's path.

Milestone Moment: Child's First Library Card

No craft or witty project today, just a proud kid showing off her very first library card! At 5 years old, our local public library lets the kids have there own card to check out materials and Claire couldn't be happier.

To help manage the LARGE amount of books, movies, video games and magazines I bring home myself, I've decided to limit Claire's checkouts to five items. This should keep me from having to pay too much for the "fines of shame" when books are inevitably late.

The librarians made a big deal of the card, coming over to offer handshakes and congratulations as well as a packet of new bookmarks and stickers. How sweet!

Bing! Bang! Boom! Homemade Instruments and Noisemakers

I know I'm one lucky lady -- I can work around the house or in the garden by myself for a while and Claire happily entertains herself building contraptions and musical instruments. I'm very, VERY thankful for such an independent kid.

One morning, I was weeding my neglected garden and heard some serious banging coming from the family room. I peeked around the corner to find Claire happy as can be, banging away on a homemade drum set.


She had taken apart her stool for the top cymbal and dumped a series of blocks and legos out of the metal bins for some nice crisp sounding drums. Her mallets are made of tinker toys. What an inventive little girl.

A few weeks after her birthday she dressed herself (rather festively) and serenaded me during breakfast looking like this. Unfortunately, you can't tell in this picture, but she's wearing another purple dress underneath the sweater. How I wish I captured a video of her humming through the birthday hat while strumming along on the other!

I wanted to share a few homemade instruments from around the web, we've made a variety of these ourselves and I can say that there is not much that satisfies a kid more than making some good, loud noise. Invite the neighbors over and have a marching band or perform an impromptu concert in your pajamas one morning. Just make sure the video camera is ready!

SIX DIY INSTRUMENTS TO MAKE & PLAY {LOUDLY}

{1} Button and Cardboard Castanets

{2} Shoebox Guitar

{3} Recycled Can Bongos

{4} Jingle-Jangle Bracelets

{5} Button Noisemarkers

{6} Straw Pipes Wind Instrument

WANT TO BUY A READY-MADE SET FOR A GIFT?

If you're looking to slip a little musical magic under the tree this year, I HIGHLY recommend Melissa and Doug's band in a box set. There's a little bit of everything inside: harmonica, castanets, kazoo, jingle stick and xylophone...what more could you ask for? Keep an eye out for CyberMonday sales, The set retails around $15 bucks and will likely be on sale even cheaper soon! Happy Music-Making!

I've got a few more musical ideas shared over at Pinterest.
Come check out the board called Noisemakers & Homemade Instruments!

Fairy houses and my thoughts on Disney's Tinker Bell

I've noticed an explosion in imaginative play this past year. From gnomes over the summer (thanks to the beautiful book we checked out from the library) to today's obsession with fairies, the world of this preschooler seems filled with magic.

 

Claire spent days working on fairy houses on our front porch. She's used rocks, sticks and leaves and is now begging us for a handful of bricks so the fairy folk will stay warm through the winter.

A Rhinocerous in our BACKYARD!

Ok, so my title is slightly misleading, but still -- check out this awesome beetle we found outside! You know the bug is big when you can HEAR it crawling around under the leaf litter:

What a great find! If you were wondering, it's a beetle in the dynastinae family, a rhinoceros beetle. Just check out that horn, if you've found a cooler beetle, I want to see it.

If you're on the hunt for a beginner's field guide to identify the creepy-crawlies, I highly recommend you check out the Peterson's First Guide collection. I think we've checked most of them out of the library and the insect and bird ones will make an appearance under the Christmas tree this year. I find these guides are great for an intro to taxonomy without being too bulky and overwhelming for little hands (and at $6.95 I won't cry for too long if they're lost).

Claire loves to watch the bugs do their work, the insect world is certainly a fascinating place. I loved her reaction when we tipped over a log and found a nest underneath with oodles of ants running around. Check out her estimation skills below, judging by her confidence in the number, I'm sure there are exactly 88 ants. Heehee!

Pattern Playtime

 
When I hear the sound of plastic beads hitting the art room floor I cringe...it usually means that for the next 3 days I'll be vacuuming up accidentally scattered beads from the entire house (and it sound like machine gun fire, I'm sure it's not good for my vacuum).

Sometimes though, there's a creative mathematician on the loose who must be loocking for something new to sort. What a funny little creature Claire is lately. Sort, sort, sort. She's a young taxonomist at work I suppose and I'm certainly enjoying all her explorations, ESPECIALLY when she cleans them up afterwards!

Garden Gnomes and Garden Toads

Getting dirty is a skill set Claire especially excels at.




The muddy project Claire is working on in the photo above was inspired by a book we checked out from the library about gnomes.  Claire was enthralled by it, and I must admit that I was as well. Growing up, I absolutely

Gnomes by Will Huygen

LOVED the Nickelodeon show "David the Gnome." Turns out the whole show was based on this book by Will Huygen. The illustrations were beautiful and I thought the premise of the story (and the gnome interviews) were endearing. The fact that we found this in the non-fiction section (it was in the oversized book collection) has convinced Claire that gnomes are really, truly, real. 

Forgetting the fairy houses of last week, Claire wanted to build a gnome house complete with a barn for a toad she found, surely the gnomes would enjoy transportation via hopping?

I think her construction technique was spot on. Lots of "logs," mud to glue them all together and a thatched roof made of leaves. The toads in the yard are quickly learning to avoid the grass when Claire is afoot, this little one was forced to "enjoy" the barn she built. He hopped away a while later, but I'm not sure he actually disliked the place.

While Claire played with mud, I worked on getting dirty myself. The side garden is almost finished. Lots of mulching left and a few more plants to go in the shady area and I'm done. I think I've personally planted about 95 shrubs and that's not counting the ones we put in during the fall months (thank you Lowes for the AWESOME clearance steals). Now I'm spraying them all with putrid smelling junk because the deer near my house pay zero attention to tags labelled, "deer resistant."

My freezer better be stocked with venison this year since I'm providing so much food for them.

Playing Show and Tell with a bunch of great blogs!

The best plans are the ones you didn't have...

Enjoying the summer's first honeysuckle. I introduced Claire to this little bit of magic and of course she was smitten!

My GPS died a couple of months ago and I've been braving the streets of suburbia with no guide, aside from my four year old backseat driver (who ALWAYS points out when your "dinkers" are not being used when turning).

Log chimney. So pretty!

I have a nice group of parks and libraries that are easy to get to, but I cling, CLING! to that GPS once I venture outside a 10 mile radius of my house. For a little background info: I grew up on Long Island and everything was laid out in a grid. You had to try, and I mean really try, to get lost there, which of course I did. Embarrassingly often.

Here, the county roads names frequently change as they wind up and over the mountains. Things are relatively well marked, but not always.

With that in mind, rewind to last week when I had plans to visit a peony farm mentioned in Martha Stewart's magazine. I blew right by the one of the last turns and without realizing it, traveled through an additional two (unmarked I swear!) towns and wound up at Jockey Hollow National Historic Site. Since it was on my list of must-see places anyway (well, insofar as driving past the brown signs on occasion and adding it to my mental list) I decided this was now our destination.

If parenting has taught me anything, it's that making plans is futile and and life is more enjoyable when you roll with whatever you're dealt.