HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR.SEUSS
Today is the perfect day to celebrate and we LOVE to throw a party!
Before starting our center rotation today we read the book The Cat In The Hat. This story fit in perfectly with our overall theme of adventure as we read about the rainy day adventure the Cat in The Hat brought to the children. During our center rotation one of the independent centers gave the students an opportunity to build their own house for the Cat in the Hat. Each child used blocks to build their house. Once complete the students added The Cat in The Hat to their house and took a picture using their iPads.
(We will use these in writing activity later)
Students took pictures of their house and then had a friend take a picture of them with their house.
There were four to six students at this center at a time and students were engaged in the activity.
Writing with
The Cat In The Hat
by Dr. Seuss
We use our iPads in writing lessons often. There are several apps that we have used and one that is easy to use and FREE is the iPhone app StoryKit.
For our Dr.Seuss writing we went back on an adventure with The Cat In The Hat, The children and I brainstormed all of the things that The Cat In The Hat might do if he came to our house.
The class discussion included things such as:
-fishing in the fish bowl
-wearing Mom's makeup
-knocking over items
Students took all of these ideas and began to create a story. We started with the house that had been built earlier. Students put that picture in StoryKit and described their house to the reader. From there, students illustrated and used pictures off their iPad to create a story about the visit The Cat In The Hat made to their house. Most students started with the photography of their house and a description of the house. On pages that students included illustrations we discussed what was more appealing to the reader, a picture that is colorful or one that is one color. Students were encouraged to use inventive spelling and used their knowledge of sentence structure to create sentences that started with upper case letters and ended with some kind of punctuation. We also talked about organization and how important it is to create a story that makes sense to the reader.
Thoughts...
I have noticed that when students write on the iPad many barriers are removed.
-It is easy to make changes to colors, words and page order.
- Students can move pages around , read the book and go back and move the pages again with the touch of a button.
-I think students add more detail to illustrations because color selection is easy.
- What students love most is the record feature!
-When you are five and six years old there is nothing better than hearing your own voice.
I believe that this is the first step to being able to be successful in speaking to groups.
At another center we explored two iPad apps that were created by Oceanhouse Media. This was an independent center and the children were given the opportunity to explore both apps at their own pace. Here is a brief description of each app.
Dr.Seuss's ABC is an app that teaches the alphabet using funny words and pictures. It is reasonably priced and the children enjoyed reading the story.
Dr. Seuss Band is a free app that was a hit in the classroom. You can use the app to hear notes and play your own tune or follow a pattern that is given to you.
