Puppet Pals app

Last week I showed my class possibly the best app I’ve used in ages: Puppet Pals. It is available for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. The free version comes with Wild West backgrounds and actors and with the paid version you get many other scenarios such as pirates, fairies, monsters, farm setting and fairies. You can buy each extra set of actors for 59p each or else buy the Director’s Pass which gives you all the extra actors and scenes. You can even make your own!

It is fabulous for storyboarding, character writing, speaking and listening as well as for just brilliant good ole fun!

Here’s a video one of the boys made independently after just a fairly basic introduction on how to use it.

What do you think of his work?

The film was made in three separate sections and I used iMovie to combine them into one video.

Here are some by the other boys:

QR code for app (iOS)

The Martian Story continues…

In a previous post called What Comments Would You Say?, I shared a story that a boy in my class had written. After posting it here a number of fabulous people (thank you!) left comments. I shared these comments with my young and now ‘famous’ author (well at least in the eyes of our school) and he was truly impressed as were his classmates.

Click on the Martian for the next installment of The Martian Story by Alfie… he hopes you enjoy it ……as do I!!

Martian Story updated

(image from the iTunes Store)

What comments would you say?

I have just read what I think is the funniest and most creative start to a story ever, from a boy in my class.

To set the scene

Yesterday the class (year 6 age 10) were asked to create a Martian using the Make a Martian app for the iPod Touch. I explained that we were going to be using the Martian they created as the basis for a story next week.

After creating and saving their Martian they had a grid on an A4 sheet of paper that they needed to fill in describing each of the body parts chosen with as much description as possible.

Child A finished his work and was allowed ‘Choosing Time’. Unbeknown to me he used the Notes app (don’t think I had ever shown him it before) and he wrote the following and then emailed it to me. I only saw and read it this morning.

Martian Story

What comments would you write/say if you read this?

iPod Touch… Getting Ready for September

Here are the apps and eBooks I have loaded onto each of the iPod Touches ready for September.

Many, many thanks to Rising Stars for sending me some eBooks to use with my class… they look great on the iPod Touch!

When less tired I’ll add a little info about how I’m hoping to use the eBooks and apps with my class of year 6 SEBD boys (age 10-11 yrs)

Lesson Observation and iTouch

On Tuesday I have an observation (for my Performance Management) during a Literacy lesson. I want the iTouches to provide an effective addition to the lesson.

In my class, and school, we focus on  developing the children’s Basic Skills in many Literacy lessons as many have gaps in their learning. The lesson on Tuesday is going to revise parts of speech and increase & extend the children’s vocabulary.

For their independent work the children are going to use their iTouches and the app Mad Libs which I’m hoping will be a fun and effective way to allow the children to practice and reinforce their learning.

As a child I used to look forward to getting a new Mad Lib book. Mad Libs consist of a book that has a short story on each page, but with many of the key words replaced with blanks. Beneath each blank is specified a noun, verb, place, or a part of the body. One player asks the other players, in turn, to contribute some word for the specified type for each blank, but without revealing the context for that word. Finally, the completed story is read aloud. The result is usually comic, surreal and somewhat nonsensical.

This great activity has come to the iTouch as a free app. (The full versions are on sale for £2.99 each).

The children will need to come up with examples for each of the parts of speech as required.

If you click on the hints button you get examples of that part of speech scrolling across the screen. This will expose the children to words they may not have thought of themselves.

You can still purchase the books from Amazon or click here to visit the US Penguin site. (I’ve just order 3 for nostalgic reasons) You can also find imitation Mad Libs online, though in my opinion, these are not as good as the originals. Here are links to some of these sites. Wacky Web Tales and Crazy Libs.

Review of iTouch Apps by my class

My class wrote reviews of their favourite iTouch apps on their MLE/Fronter pages. I thought I would share them here.

A:
We have iTouchs in our  class. We use them for learning and sometimes we use then for fun. There’s a game called Angry Birds. You have to pull back the sling shot and let go to fire and you have to predict were the birds are going to hit the other birds.

G:
I’ve been using the ipod touch lately and have been playin lots of apps so it is so cool. I really like to play pop math.  It is a maths game that you put a number to a maths question and if you’re right the maths question will disappear. Then you just finish the rest. Another  app is fluid. It can really calm well (relax). It plays a type of dusk music and then you tap the screen and water slowly, calmly splashes like a small puddle.

J:
In Oak just last week we got ipod touches which helps us with our work and sometimes  miss lets us go on games. My favourite game is Touch Pets and  my favourite maths game is Pop Maths.

S:
If you are angry there is an app to calm down. We also have Touch Pets for free time. Sometimes we have Pop Math for Math.

T:
iPods are so cool. They have apps for when you are angry. When you feel like this you can use a calming app. One of them is called FLUID. You use your finger and rub the screen and it makes kind of an enchanting sound.

The game that I love is LET’S GOLF That game lets you connect to the people all around the world and people who are in the room with you.

Also you can play a good game called Angry Birds it’s fun and its a science Physic game because you have know where to hit the enemy’s buildings.

J:
We use the iPod touches for learning and there is a particular game which I  like called Pop Math. In this game there are bubbles and inside them are maths questions which you have to match with the answer. A game I like to play on the iPod touch is Angry Birds, where you catapult birds at structures to knock them down. I really like the Fluid app, it helps you calm down, it’s really smooth. I think iPod touches ROCK!!!!!

Using the iPod Touch in unexpected ways.

We have been using the iPod Touches in class for just over 3 weeks and I can hardly imagine not having them. I had planned on using them in a number of ways in the curriculum but the children have suggested using them in ways I hadn’t thought of!

Generally speaking there has been a significant improvement in the children’s behaviour in class and the way they respond to one another. This may just be a coincidence but long may it last ;o)

Due to the very nature of the children I teach there still has been the odd ‘moment or two’ where one child or another has become angry and has had difficulty managing their own behaviour. The iTouches have again played a significant part in helping them calm.

One child, who was having a ‘difficult’ day and came in from a playtime very angry, used the iPod Touch app Fluid as a calming activity. Essentially it’s a liquid water simulation which responds to your touch and generates ripples and little waves in response. There also is Zen music which plays quietly in the background. Being able to put earphones in his ears helped block out other sounds in the classroom and he was able to calm himself quickly.

Another good ‘calming’ app is Bubble Wrap. Not quite as rewarding as the real thing, in my opinion, but the kids seem to love it!

In a Maths lesson earlier this week I wanted the children to generate 2 digit numbers by rolling dice and then finding what number they need to add to this to get to 100. I had put dice on the tables (which always seems to cause all such excitement!) when a child said ‘Why don’t we use iChoose‘ It’s an app that has, amongst many other things, dice. No dice flying off the table or getting lost. (It also has Rock/Paper/Scissors!!)

All of these apps are free and, so far, do not seem to have any advertising associated to them.

I would love to hear how other people are using an iPod Touch in the classroom.