Enhance Early Understanding of Shape with iPad and Animation Apps

January 12, 2015April 13, 2015 @MarcWithersey Apps, Early Years, iPads, Maths early years, maths, shapes, teaching

Animating with iStopMotion

iStopMotion brings stop frame animation to early years for the first time. The app allows the children to see their last taken frame on top of the live view of the next image they need to take. This shows them where to place the object they are animating for the next shot. This feature is known as an onion skin. Here is an example of this feature from teachwithvideo.com.

At first glance, this app lends itself perfectly to story telling, language and literacy. This year though, I had an opportunity to enhance shape, space and measure with iStopMotion.

Apps to use – click the app names to take you to the AppStore

Free: iMotion – this app does not have an ‘onion skin’ feature.

Paid (lower price point ): iCanAnimate – this app does have ‘onion skin’ but does not record sound/voice of the animation

Paid (higher price point): iStopMotion – this app has both ‘onion skin’ and sound/voice record.

Continue reading →

Enhance Early Understanding of Shape with iPad and Padlet

January 12, 2015March 31, 2015 @MarcWithersey Apps, Early Years, iPads, Maths early years, maths, shapes, teaching

Shape Hunting around School.

This adult led activity happens in so many foundation classes, and I have led shape walks many times. During these walks, we carry a bag of plastic shapes, and we match the plastic pieces to real objects. This happens for 2D and 3D shapes. The children might even mark off on a clipboard the shapes they spotted, like bingo, or draw pictures of the shapes they have seen. By the end of the walk, they have all recorded the same shapes in the same places. I wanted to enhance this experience, to make it more collaborative. To do this I used Padlet.

Continue reading →

Paperless Assessment in Early Years: apps and ideas to consider.

October 2, 2014April 13, 2015 @MarcWithersey Apps, Assessment, Early Years, iPads, Leadership and Managemant apps, Assessment, data, early years, learning journey, observation

This time last year we discussed a move towards using an assessment app in our Foundation 2 Unit. Up until September 2013 I had always gathered my photographic evidence using a digital camera and organised them easily using iTag software. I wrote a post about this a few years back here. So much has changed with the way photographs and cameras are used in Foundation settings since that, so here is an update.

Using ICT has always reduced the time it takes me to organise my assessments and by having a note taking and photo gathering app, which creates a learning journey, the time it takes us to file has been reduced considerably. Our workflow has also been significantly streamlined as observations no longer need to be collected and then manually filed in date order. You cannot deny it is much easier to put your finger on ‘that piece of evidence’ when 30 learning journeys are on one iPad screen!

Continue reading →

Genius Hour in Foundation.

September 25, 2014October 6, 2014 @MarcWithersey Apps, Child Initiated Learning, Early Years, iPads, Leadership and Managemant child initiated, child lead learning, early years, genius hour, ipad, ipads, transformation

This year we want to develop our project and research skills with our children. We want to offer our children learning opportunities beyond what the curriculum suggests. We want to give them enrichment opportunities which promote a thirst for learning and a chance to find out more about something they are passionate about.

Continue reading →

Our second week using iPads in Foundation – Let’s be published authors!

September 18, 2014April 13, 2015 @MarcWithersey Apps, Early Years, iPads apps, books, early years, ipad, ipads, literacy

Creating content on our iPads is an important part of our new computing curriculum and it begins in the foundation stage. The app I introduced was My Story and the skill was to import photographs on to pages.

Last week we worked on the basics on the iPads- switching them on/off, handling them safely, making videos and taking photographs. These basics are still being covered as part of our review each time we start working on the iPads.

Continue reading →

Our first week using iPads in Foundation – mastering the basics!

September 16, 2014March 31, 2015 @MarcWithersey Apps, Early Years, iPads apps, books, early years, ipad, ipads, literacy

I have had just over a week settling our new Foundation 2 children in to school. As well as the usual rules and routines of a new setting, I have introduced them to iPads and how they can be used at school.

Some children are more confident than others, which challenges the perception that “the kids already know how to use them” and “they will end up teaching you to use them”. Some of the children didn’t know how to turn them on and off, and most children have had to learn new vocabulary involved with using the iPads (sleep/wake button, home button, home screen). This language was introduced as we were using the iPads, as well as correct ways to hold and carry them around school; “two hands, fingers on the back, thumbs on the front”.

Continue reading →

Today Is International #DotDay!!

September 15, 2014March 31, 2015 @MarcWithersey Assessment, Child Initiated Learning, Collaboration, Early Years, iPads, Social Media Collaboration, dot day, early years, global, ipad, project, skype

Earlier this month I blogged about the upcoming International Dot Day on September 15th. The day finally arrived today and it has been fantastic!

A lot of preparation went in to the day. We actually began Dot Day on the Thursday before. Our children got to know the text well before the day came, and we had finished our individual dots by close of play on Friday. For the actual day, we enhanced our continuous provision areas with dotty resources which the children had access to indoors and outdoors all day long – an exciting blog post about this has been published on Alistair Bryce-Clegg’s blog here.

Continue reading →

Teaching about Life on Earth in Early Years

August 30, 2014October 6, 2014 @MarcWithersey Apps, Child Initiated Learning, Early Years, iPads, Outdoors apps, books, early years, ipad, ipads, literacy, photography

Context

This summer at the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute in San Diego our theme for the week was ‘Life On Earth’. To kick start the week we had a fantastic keynote from famed biologist E.O. Wilson, author of the new Life on Earth multi-touch textbooks available for free from the iBook Store.

Continue reading →

Using Puppet Pals to support choice making and SEN provision.

February 26, 2014October 6, 2014 @MarcWithersey Apps, Child Initiated Learning, Early Years, iPads apps, child initiated learning, early years, ipad, provision, SEN

I have been working with a local nursery who use iPads with their SEN children.

The nursery manager had a vision to use apps to help children make choices. There are apps designed to do this, but most are expensive or present many small symbols for the child to choose from.

My suggestion was Puppet Pals. Even though this app is designed for story telling, it is so versatile and can be used beyond story telling.

Continue reading →

Programming Apps for Early Years and Key Stage 1

July 13, 2013April 25, 2015 @MarcWithersey Apps, Early Years, iPads, Leadership and Managemant apps, coding, computing, early years, ict, ipad, key stage 1, primary, Programming

This has been a busy week to say the least! Not only am I preparing to move schools, I have been at 3 CPD events in two days and the new primary curriculum has been released (almost).

The 3 events were Computing at Schools (NTU Hub), TeachMeet Nottingham and The Festival of Innovation. At all 3 events I was involved in running workshops, but it was good to spend time listening to others and finding about about computing and programming. My good friend Peter Bevington (@PeteBevington) has great ideas for a new primary curriculum which he has already started embedding so do get in touch with him for your long term ICT plans!

Meeting other teachers is also great and that’s how I pick up new ideas. So here’s my favourite three Apps for programming on the iPad (the 4th being BeeBot which we all know and love). By the way, these are all FREE on AppStore!

Continue reading →