WOW Wednesday: Pam Grantham, BES

Wow! We love our iPads! My name is Pam Grantham and I teach first grade reading at BES. My classes use our iPads in their daily rotation during reading. We have used a number of apps and learned many basic iPad skills. At the beginning of the year, we started with Doodle Buddy to learn to use the tools and many iPad basics while using this program. Students learned to draw and write in this program. We became familiar with many common iPad terms.

We next used Sock Puppets as we were studying the difference between realistic fiction and fantasy. Students worked in pairs to do a short interview asking each other to identify a book they were reading as fantasy or realistic fiction and why. They were highly motivated by the cute sock puppets replaying and acting out their interview.

We spent some time before Christmas reading and listening to books through the Capstone Books free trial period. They loved being able to scroll through and choose books on their level to enjoy.

Recently, we began to explore Skitch. We have learned how to photograph each other and how to use the tools to draw and type labels and captions on to the photo. We also used it to capture a picture from a familiar book. Then we added labels and captions to it to enhance our discussions about books. We also used this opportunity to teach others “how to” use the app. Each student was taught by a student and had to teach the next. What a great tie-in to our “How to” writing activities this six weeks!

This week we are going to explore QR Codes using them to decode the answers to a word scramble and soon to answer coded questions about the books we are reading. They are going to love it!

I would strongly recommend taking advantage of the WOW Academy! It has been baby steps for me to incorporate the iPads into my daily classroom routine and I have needed help along the way. The great thing is help is there if you need it. I thank Ann DeBolt for her help and support during this first year.