Search This Blog

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Magic Pot and Screen Chomp

I've been working on addition and subtraction Math facts and thought I'd try a fun way to work on the doubles facts using the iPads.  I started out by reading the book "Two of Everything" by Lily Toy Hong to the kids.


It's a fun story about a magic pot that doubles whatever is put in it.  We've been working on our doubles facts so the kids already got this concept.  

I chose the "Screen Chomp" app for the kids to use in this project.  I wanted to try this app because I liked the way the whole screen could be used and the way the kids could record their voices either while they were drawing or after.  I also liked that I could save it in Safari window thereby enabling me to have a URL of the kids work.  This will be important later. 
I showed the kids how to draw a magic pot and told them that they needed to think of their favorite thing that they would put into the magic pot and to draw it.  I also told them that they had to use a number between 2 and 10, so if they liked pizza then they could draw 2 or up to 10 pizzas to put in the pot.  They were also told to label the drawing with the number and what went into the pot.

The next part was to make their recordings.  I showed them how to do it and then said they could work with a friend if needed but none of them chose to work this way.  They feel very confident and went right to work.  I said that I wanted the recording to say "I put ____ into my magic pot, how many came out?"  This was done and now I showed them how to save it into the "Screen Chomp" app.

Now, the rest of the work was mine. I am sure there is an easier way to do what I am about to tell you, but since I have no one to collaborate with, it's all up to me to figure this out.  This was the best I could do for now and hope to find an easier way soon. 

 I needed to go into each kids iPad Screen Chomp app and open up the work they did.  Once it was opened, I chose the button in the lower right corner that says "Open In Safari".  Once it was opened I took a screen shot.  It was this or write down the URL's but I was afraid that if I didn't write it down correctly I'd have to go back through all of this again, so better safe than sorry.  Once I had the screen shot, I went to my Evernote app.
I opened up the Evernote and put the photos from Screen Chomp into here.  Now I had all of the URL's for the kids work.

My next step: make QR codes using the kids work!  It would have been super easy if I could just cut and paste the URL's but that wouldn't work, so I had to write then all down and did make some mistakes along the way, so I'm glad they were saved in Evernote.

Here is a QR code from one of the kids work.

I made a packet that had 3 QR codes per sheet along with a box to draw the problem and a place for the equation.  I staggered the codes to help the kids scan easier.  It was so rewarding to hear their squeals of delight as they found their own and their friends codes. 

My takeaway from this adventure is that "Screen Chomp" is a very kids friendly app that has so much potential for future use.  I love that it has the safari option, I haven't found that in other apps that I have.  The kids were able to get to work right away with minumal instruction and saving was very easy.  I'm definitely using this one again!





5 comments:

  1. I am so impressed with your grant! I had a request for 1 on DonorsChoose but it's not getting good traffic. I will definitely be following your blog so I will be ready when I do get my iPad. I've tagged you in a fun blog tag game...Stop by Educator Designs to join the fun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Curious if you could have emailed the link from safari instead of taking screenshots?.
    I'm loving your blog and the thought of a class set of iPads makes my mouth water!,

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really love this idea of using QR codes as an entry point into the kids' reading - fun practice and real world experience. Also, the kids are so focused on their work- talk about a sense of being interested in what they are doing as learners. Thank you for being a risk taker who is willing to engage in design work with kids.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Loved the project idea! I was unable to open the QR code. Would you mind sharing the link? Thank you in advance!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very nice article and I am Obat Aborsi And Obat Telat Bulan very happy to meet with your blog, the articles are very interesting, thank you for share very amazing article and I wait for the next quality articles...

    ReplyDelete