Ipads and Oceans

Our unit this week has been all about oceans. Good thing, too, because it's hard to learn about sh and ch without beach, fish and shells! We've enjoyed learning about shells, sounds, whales and a myriad of other facts about the ocean. For show and tell we enjoyed seeing some real starfish, coral, sea sponges and a tiny little seahorse. We sorted seashells by shape, size and color. In other words, we've been BUSY!

A couple months ago, the administration gave our classroom an iPad to use. So how do we use one iPad among 20 students? Good question. We've been slowly trying it out, incorporating it into our daily schedule. Here are a couple ways we've been using it:

We love how the noise meter app has been helping us control our voices during lunch time and indoor recess. A siren goes off when the noise gets a little loud and the kids bring the level right back down to where it should be.

Noise Meter on the Ipad

Today we went on a word hunt in the classroom and took pictures of all the ch and sh words we found. Here are just a couple of the things we took pictures of on our hunt:

chalkboard

shoelaces

We also let the iPad tell us who is going to have a turn next during class. This keeps everyone on their toes since no one knows who will be chosen next!

I've downloaded some really neat apps and I'm working on a system that will give everyone a turn to use the iPad on their level of learning. I think we'll need to come up with some classroom rules to keep the iPad safe first!