Purposeful and Powerful Play on the iPad

I am usually all about the educational value (and cost of course) of apps.  But no kindergarten teacher should ever discount the power of play.  Building relationships, decision making, and creativity are key developmental areas that should be addressed in kindergarten.  They often get brushed aside in the rush to meet standards and prepare children for first grade.

My teaching career started in 1998 at the Cooperative Children's Center in Seattle, WA.  It is a parent owned childcare center started in the 70's by University of Washington parents and continues to value parent involvement, an anti-bias and emergent curriculum, and teachers and parents utilize positive discipline strategies.  At the Co-op I learned about NAEYC standards (National Association for the Education of the Young Child) and DAP (developmentally appropriate practice).  During my time there (I said goodbye for the last-time in 2003 and I still think fondly of the staff and families I came to love) I saw the power of child directed play and learning experiences based on child interest and not a prescribed curriculum.

I've been working in Preschool and Kindergarten in a school district setting since 2005 and I have felt the pressure of meeting standards and teaching children of all abilities.  I have felt the need to make my classroom look and act like first grade so parents and administrators trust that I'm adequately preparing the precious darlings entrusted to me.  Focusing on phonics, handwriting, counting to 100 seemed the right thing to do... but what about play?  Creativity? Social skills?  Vocabulary development and conversation?  All teachers complain about not enough time in the day to teach everything necessary.  I have the luxury of teaching all day Kindergarten but it still feels like there's not enough time to fit in "academics" and play and do justice to both. 

I was reminded today of a phrase I focused on during my quest to complete my Masters and National Board Certification.  Purposeful teaching, powerful play.  NBCT's know any lesson is not complete without asking the question- what is the impact on student learning?  No matter how fun, engaging or just plain cool an activity is, you are wasting your and student's time if you haven't considered just what the impact on student learning will be.  You don't even have to make changes usually (although often I tweak a lesson once I consider the question) to your activity.  Simply asking yourself how can I be purposeful while teaching this lesson helps you look for opportunities to ask meaningful questions, guide play, and build on student interest to make a powerful learning activity rather than one that was 'fun'. When play is approached purposefully academics naturally fits in. 

So I think my soliloquy is done.  When I started this post I was going to share some 'fun' apps that I believe could benefit your classroom.  Today I was watching my 3 year old play on my iPad and paid attention to the apps she likes to play with.  Several of her favorites (and mine too) are made by the app developer Toca Boca (website with videos of their apps). 

Today I bought the full version of Toca Doctor for her @ $.99- but you can try out the lite version too- she loved it so I decided to pay up!)  While I was on a roll I bought the Toca Tea Party  for $2.99 (I love tea parties and what a fun way to let Lily play at having one too). I downloaded Toca Hair Salon while it was free awhile back (thanks to Mom's with Apps for their Free App Friday site!) as well as Paint My Wings.  Toca Robot Lab is relatively new and I bought it for Lily for $.99 today too.  Lastly, I bought Helicopter Taxi (it's just so easy to click install when you have $ in your account!!!) for $1.99.

For Lily, I buy things I wouldn't be willing to buy class sets of.  I would however recommend at least buying one copy of Tea Party, Hair Salon, and Doctor for your dramatic play centers (I need to play with Helicopter and robot more before I recommend them).  You will definitely need to ask your kids to brainstorm fair ways to share the iPads you put it on, but they should also be clamoring for turns cutting yarn hair, playing with doctor tools and setting up a tea set. 

Lily's Tea Party

Tea Party is built for up to four players at once (three attendees and one server)- Lily and I had a tea party with her baby doll and then she had one with her stuffed dog and baby all by herself.  I liked the choices offered and the opportunity for us to talk and use manners and just have fun.  I loved watching her talk for her dog and doll and serve them.  Make the play purposeful by counting how many bites you take or how many sips until your cookie or juice is gone.  I want a star shaped cookie- do you want the triangle shape cake?  Is it fun- Yes.  Can it be educational? Yes.  Developmentally appropriate? Yes.  Put an iPad in your kitchen corner and see what they do with it.  By the way, kids could take orders for a restaurant using a drawing app too.  :)

Doctor has little puzzles and activities that have children pick an area of the body to fix.  I would love if the app had an option to turn on verbal labels- such as stomach, wrist, and maybe count how many slivers are taken out.  But again, this is where the teacher/parent should come in- be there while your child plays and create opportunities to learn through play.

I do have Hair Salon on my class iPads and the kids LOVE it.  And honestly, so do I!  They make funky hairdo's, show off their creations and talk about the choices they make.  You can use vocabulary like short and long, talk color choices (what nice blue and gold hair you've colored there!) and discuss symmetry and asymmetry. 

Speaking of symmetry, Paint My Wings is another favorite of my kinders- and is good for discussions about color and examples of how butterfly wings have a line of symmetry.

Here's an idea for you teachers with one or a few iPads, or for when you've only bought one copy of an app.  During centers put an iPad in the housekeeping center that kids will use "housekeeping" folder apps with.  Put one at the math table with math apps, including some of the fun math apps.  In your construction corner put the iPad with a build folder with angry birds, toca robot and more.  Encourage the kids to build an example from the game. 

There are more apps that are playful I could mention by name, but that would require my daughter giving me back the iPad.  But she is still playing- and by the way, after cleaning the sugar bugs off the teeth in Toca Doctor she told me she wants to go to the dentist now.

Study after study talks about the need for creativity and problem solving skills for successful 21st century learners... can the iPad help with that?  I think so. 

Kindergarten Angry Bird Competition!

I will always advocate for full day kindergarten. My first year of teaching K my class was split into am/pm and I hated it. I was very limited to reading, writing, math and I always felt rushed. The afternoon kids were drooping, and so was I. I hated repeating the same thing I'd already done in the am. The kids were already staying all day, just with an enrichment teacher (a para Ed) for the time they weren't with me. By February I'd had enough and combined my kiddos... And It was amazing. Suddenly I had time to do projects I'd felt guilting fitting in before. So, for the next 4 years I've begged to keep all day kindergarten no matter the class size. and I've loved it.

However, the kids are so tired by Friday I have instituted 'Fun Friday'. We stick to routine M-Th and then change it up on Friday. I have a parent volunteer in the morning, so I do messy projects and things I won't tackle on my own with so many busy kiddos. I try to plan special events on Fridays and save the best ideas for Fridays... One of which was our own game of Angry Birds.

When I first got the iPads I downloaded Angry Birds for my family to play, and of course we all loved it. I left the free version on the class iPads and of course my students loved it. Recently I decided to take 'non educational' apps off the class iPads, including Angry Birds. Yes, I know, many teachers will insist that the game teaches physics, strategy, and other worthwhile skills. I however, think it's pure fun and would rather have my students use apps that are more meaningful during learning times.

Then, normally kind students started arguing over the iPads I hadn't changed (erased the fun games on) yet. A parent of a somewhat emotional child told me he'd cried at home because I was taking Angry Birds away. The kids were using blocks and plastic counting bears to build Angry Bird style structures.

So I finally decided to cave in, and put Angry Birds on all the iPads again. I also started planning a way to play Angry Birds in class after seeing the intricate structures they were building.

Then this Blog Archive » Using Angry Birds to teach math, history and science
http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=3970 came to my attention and I knew it was time to go hog wild (pun anyone?) and embrace the craze. After all, it is my job to captivate young learners and make curriculum to fit their interests and the standards.

How we played Angry birds in K:

First, I let the kids play the game on the iPad or other device. I also showed a few YouTube clips of lifesize angry bird games and one stopmotion paper recreation.

Then I printed off the piggy targets (targets available if you follow the above link). I printed and attached them to tissue boxes for the practices and then plastic cups for the competition (easier to knock over). I collected various materials for the launchers and angry birds. For the launchers i had some wooden parts; shims, popsicle sticks, blocks and tape, small plastic frisbees, straws, plastic spoons, rubber bands, thread spools, pipe cleaners. For the birds a student suggested eraser caps, I wrapped styrofoam eggs in tape, and we also used large white dried beans for the birds.

I put the kids in groups of their choice, but that didn't work well as the kids all wanted to make their own. Then I let them work alone or as a group. I did ask them to talk about and draw pictures of their designs. Some were great depictions of what they actually created.

After they'd had time to create, we went outside to practice using targets made from tissue boxes and the pig targets I'd printed off. Then I gave more time for adjusting their launchers, and then for practicing shooting at the targets, which were now taped onto plastic cups. We assigned points: 10 for a small cup being hit, 100 for a knock over. 50 for a big cup, 500 for a knock over.

I announced the competition would be held the next week, with school made and homemade launchers. Suggested Rules for homemade launchers: kid directed and assembled, with some parent help, No store-bought (one child did bring a professional slingshot) or touching the "bird" allowed.

Our local stores did not carry any angry birds merchandise so I bought a $4 slingshot from Fred Meyers and three slingshot airplane gliders as prizes. I also printed off copies of the targets for all students so they could play at home. Each child was given 3 shots of 1-3 angry birds of their choice. They got two chances, for a total of 6 shots.

I think this was the coolest project I've ever done in K. The kids had so much fun and were very creative. The 1st-4th graders who observed us practicing were so jealous I hasn't done it with them when I was their teacher.

Video to follow... Hopefully this weekend :)