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language arts

10 Good Spelling Apps

December 17, 2015 by admin

10 iPad Apps for Spelling PracticeGrowing up in my house there were countless games of Scrabble and informal spelling bees. Those were about the only fun ways my siblings and I had to learn how to spell. Today, there are plenty of iPad apps that bring an element of fun to spelling lessons. Here is a selection of some of the dozens of spelling apps that I’ve tested over the last few years.

Words Mine is a free iPad app that combines elements of Tetris with spelling games. The challenge of Words Mine is to spell words quickly before the screen fills up with blocks. Each block contains one letter. Choose blocks from each column to be sure that one column doesn’t reach the top of the screen too quickly. A columns drop down when a letter is used from it. If you need more letter options just shake your iPad to make more letters drop into the screen.

Spelling Monster is an iPad app (free and paid versions available) that students will enjoy using to practice spelling words. On Spelling Monster students can create their own lists of words or use lists shared with them (sharing only available in paid version). The app contains a half dozen games through which students can practice spelling the words in their lists. Spelling Monster keeps track of the number of times a game is played and the percentage of words spelled correctly. Students do not have to create an account to use Spelling Monster. The app can be used without a connection to the Internet.

Spell ’til You Drop is a free iPad app from McGraw-Hill. The app gets its name from the game format used throughout the app. To play the game students have to correctly spell words as they are read aloud to them. For each correctly spelled word students move across a footbridge. For each word spelled incorrectly a piece of the bridge drops away. The app has eight difficulty levels for students to play. My one complaint about the app is that it doesn’t use a QWERTY keyboard.

Endless Wordplay is a great app from the same people that brought us the popular Endless Alphabet,Numbers, and Reader apps. In Endless Alphabet students help a friendly monster navigate a make believe world by spelling words correctly. At each stop in the adventure students have to spell a series of three rhyming words. The app reads the word to students and provides them with hints when they get stuck on a spelling. Endless Wordplay doesn’t award points. Instead of earning points the incentive is just to keep moving forward in the game at your own pace.

Manulife Word Hunter is a free iPad app designed to help children learn new words. The app features a board game that students move through by rolling dice and correctly spelling new words as they go. Kids can play the game alone or with up to two other players. A student who plays alone will be playing against the automated players.

Animals Flip and Mix ($1.99) is a fun iPad app that elementary school students will enjoy using. The app presents students with cartoon drawings of animals and plants. The drawings are divided into three sections. Each section has a syllable written next to it. Students have to sort the thirds of the cartoon animal or plant until its name is correctly spelled. When they’ve correctly spelled a name they can play a short game or see the cartoon animal in action.

Word Wizard ($2.99) is an iPad app that elementary school students can use to learn the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, sound-out words, and spell new words. The app has two primary modes to it. In the “Movable Alphabet” mode students can drag and drop letters on a board to try to create words. In Movable Alphabet mode each time a student touches a letter the narrator makes the sound of that letter. If a student combines letters, the narrator will make the sound of that letter combination. That pattern continues until a word has been created. In Word Wizard’s Spelling Quiz mode students select a word list from the gallery of lists. After selecting a list students have to spell the words that the narrator reads to them. To help students spell each word each letter is pronounced while the student drags it onto the letter board. Word Wizard offers four narrator voices to choose from. I found the “Tracy” voice with the US accent easiest to understand. There is also a “Rachel” voice with a UK accent, a “Tyler” voice with an Australian accent, and another US voice called “Heather.”

Rocket Speller is a fun iPad app designed for students in Kindergarten through grade two. The purpose of the app is to help students learn to spell words simple words that are three to ten letters long. As students progress through the levels of the app they get stars. After they get three stars students pick out the parts they want to use to build a rocket ship. Rocket Speller has five levels for students to work through. The first level uses three to six letter words and gives audio and visual clues to students. The second level features words up to ten letters in length and offers audio and visual hints. The third through fifth levels have words up to ten letters in length but reduce the number of clues available to students.

Bitsboard is a free iPad app that provides word games, memory games, spelling games, and reading practice activities, and dozens of other activities in one place. On the Bitsboard app students can learn new vocabulary words, how to tell time, and how to count money. Students can also use the app to learn basic geography. When students first open Bitsboard on their iPads they will have six topics shown on their homescreens. Those six topics are emotions, animals, famous places, first sentences, introductory English vocabulary, and introductory Spanish vocabulary. Opening any of those topics takes students to their choice of eight practice activities including flashcards, true or false quizzes, word building practice, reading practice, and matching activities.

Stumpy’s Alphabet Dinner is a fun app in which students feed letters and shapes to cartoon characters. The letters and shapes that students feed to the characters have to match the letter or shape displayed on the character’s stomach. If the child makes an incorrect match the character spits out the letter.

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Filed Under: Elementary School, Middle School Tagged With: free ipad apps, ipad apps, language arts, spelling

A Comic Creation Contest for Kids

November 24, 2015 by admin

Last month comic templates were added to the popular Book Creator iPad app. Book Creator is hosting a contest to showcase those new templates. The contest is open to students under the age of 13. To enter students have to create a comic story by using the templates in the Book Creator iPad app. The winner will receive an iPad Pro and two runners-up will receive iPad minis.

The rules of the contest are quite complex so make sure you read them all before your students begin. One of the rules that jumps out is that you cannot have more than three entries from the same school. Therefore, you might need to host your own contest within your school to determine which comics will be entered into the Book Creator contest.

Watch the video embedded below to learn more about the comics creation option in Book Creator.

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Filed Under: Elementary School, Middle School Tagged With: book creator, comics, Creative Writing, ipad apps, language arts

Create Comics in the Latest Version of Book Creator for iPad

October 16, 2015 by admin

book_creator The popular Book Creator iPad app received a great update this week. The full version of Book Creator now includes tools for creating comics. The comic creation tools include a large selection of layouts, speech bubbles, drawing tools, stamps, and stickers. You can even include your own pictures in the comics that you create in Book creator. Watch the video embedded below to learn more about the comics creation option in Book Creator.

Book Creator allows you to export your books to ePub format. The exported file can be opened and read in the Chrome web browser using the free Readium browser extension. This is a great option as it allows a parent who doesn’t have an iPad at home to view his or her child’s work at home.

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Filed Under: Elementary School, High School, Middle School Tagged With: book creator, comics, digital storytelling, ipad app, ipad apps, language arts, writing

PBS Students – Discover Educational Resources on Your iPad

October 16, 2015 by admin

pbs students 1 Parts of this post originally appeared on my other blog, FreeTech4Teachers.com.

PBS Students is a new iPad app designed to showcase some of the best educational content for students. Through the app students and teachers can search for educational videos, articles, and diagrams. Some of the the video content can be downloaded directly to an iPad. The app was initially launched two weeks ago and it was updated this week. The update fixed an issue with some content shown in the app not being accessible when selected. The other update is the inclusion of a Puzzle Builder tool.

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The Puzzle Builder is an addition to PBS Learning Media’s Storyboard tool which allows you to create a collection of videos, text, and images organized around almost any topic of your choosing. The collections that you or your students create appear in a collage-like format. The storyboards function is nice for students who are over the age of 13 as they can save their collections in the app and online. Unfortunately, students who are under the age of 13 cannot save their storyboards.

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Filed Under: High School, Middle School Tagged With: free apps, free ipad apps, language arts, Math, PBS, science, social studies

The StoryCorps App Helps Students Format & Record Interviews

July 13, 2015 by admin

storycorpsStoryCorps.me is a free iOS and Android app designed to help people conduct and record great interviews. The app includes a set of questions that you can use in your interview. The question sets are varied depending upon the relationship that you do or don’t have with your interviewee. While recording your interview you can swipe through the questions to help you keep the interview on track. Completed recordings can saved on your device and or shared with the StoryCorps community.

StoryCorps.me will try to force you to create a StoryCorps account, but you can use it without creating an account. Creating an account will allow you to publish your recordings on the StoryCorps website.

StoryCorps.me is the app that I would want students to use when they are recording podcasts involving two or more people. Being able to see the questions while they record should help students keep their interviews concise and on track.

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Filed Under: High School, Middle School Tagged With: audio recording, free apps, language arts

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