09 August 2013

Got an iPad?



 Hope you're all having a FANTASTIC August!  School is just around the corner for us, and we're definitely getting back into the planning mode, our kiddos arrive the first week of September and we can't wait to meet our new first graders! 
We just love using iPads in our classrooms and thought we'd share some of our favorite teacher apps that we love!  
Before we share about those we wanted to show you all an awesome iPad case that each of us received.  

  We just love a stylish iPad case and this one definitely meets that expectation!  With children of our own we also needed a case that can easily be cleaned and is durable too, and this case meets those requirements.  Finger smudges wipe away nicely and the case is very flexible.
We LOVE how the case is designed and how easily our iPads fit securely inside.  
The Velcro tab lifts nicely, and tucks easily under to securely hold an iPad.  There is also a stylus loop which ca easily be tucked under if not needed.    

Along with being stylish, this case has several features that we love!

 The case is flexible yet sturdy, and because the cover tucks nicely and securely, we are able to display our iPads vertically or horizontally without the case sliding.

Along with the nice-looking stitching, we love how all of our buttons and power slots are easily accessible!  No need to take our iPads out to take a picture!  
The Snugg has MANY iPad case colors to choose from, and a lot of other accessories as well! 
You can check them out {HERE}!

We received this product for free in exchange for an honest review.
The opinions expressed in the above paragraph have not been influenced by the company or the free product mentioned above.

We mentioned above that we LOVE using iPads in our classrooms.  There are so many educational apps out there and we'll share our favorites with you next week!  Today though, we wanted to share with you some cool teacher friendly apps that we've just recently discovered and our using on our own iPads!

Grade It! 
& Groovy Grader 

Love that you can enter in how many questions possible and then these apps provide you with the percentage based on how many problems missed.  
With Grade It! you can email the table to yourself as well.  
These are both free and who doesn't love a free app?!

Visual GradeBook
 This app does cost, but is SO helpful when organizing student test scores.  It took a little practice to figure out, but once we got the hang of it, we could see how beneficial this app is going to be in the upcoming school year!  We like that you can create charts to compare a group of students or an individual student.

TeacherKit
Another free app!!!  With this app you can track behavior and attendance.  We also like that you can
create a visual seating chart.  This app allows you to keep track of grades as well.

CORE (Common Core Standards)
This is an easy to use free app that provides access to the Common Core Standards.  This is a great  paper free version that we can easily access anywhere!

Here are two apps that we've recently found and are going to teach with this upcoming school year.  They could easily be displayed on a SMART Board or Whiteboard.  We have been able to display images from our iPads to our SMART Boards, but have yet to find the appropriate adapters to be able to actually use apps on the SMART Board from our connected iPads.  This is our second year with SMART Boards and we are determined to find the right adapters this year!  If any of you have tips or ideas we'd love to hear them!


Sight Words List- Learn to Read Flash Cards & Games
Another free app!!!  What we like about this app is that you can create your own sight word list.  This app also contains several built in sight word lists, but we liked how we could create a list based on our sight words that we teach with our current reading program.  Instead of using flash cards that can be often hard to see, this will be much easier for our kiddos to see on our SMART Boards and more fun since you can also record your voice for each word!

Teaching Number Lines
We use a number of tools and manipulatives while teaching math and number lines are one of them. This app has a free and paid version.  We love that is provides a fun visual on how to use a number line and this will be perfect when while teaching addition and subtraction!


We hope this post provided you with some great ideas for your iPads or other type of tablet.  If you've found other teacher apps that you love please share in our comments below.  Any tips on how to play apps from an iPad on a SMART Board are welcomed as well :)
Have a WONDERFUL weekend!



2 comments:

  1. I just my Snugg case last week. LOVE IT! Thanks for all the app ideas. I'm off to check them out.
    Petersons-Pad

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  2. If you purchase an iTV (little gadget that hooks on your projector) it will project any image on your smartboard.
    Can't wait for your sale tomorrow since I have my eye on your Common Core Morning workbook! Keep up the great work!
    Lori

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