Free Code for Count to 100 app available

I was given a code to share with you, dear followers, for "Count to 100" an iPad app that is usually $1.99.  (If you don't follow www.adigitalkindergarten.com yet, it's easy- input your email address over to the right!  But you don't have to in order to win the code.)


I haven't tried the app out yet- but will report soon on what I think!  Find out more about the app here- http://fuzzybees.com/
I will pick someone who answers one of these questions:

What feature(s) would you like to see in a counting app?
How important is reporting student progress in an app to you?
Do you want apps to have multiple user accounts to track student data?
Do you want fun 'reward' activities included in learning apps?

Please provide a thoughtful response- the goal here is to give developers feedback in what teachers want in an app!  Respond in comments (I won't post your email to the blog) or email sue@adigitalkindergarten.com


Kristy Hhas left a new comment on your post "Free Code for Count to 100 app available": 

Fun rewards activities are quite motivating for my Kindergarten students. I think for boys building a car or rocket after each activity they complete would be motivating. For the girls building a flower garden or free form drawing would be motivating.

Thanks Kristy!

Rachael has left a new comment on your post "Free Code for Count to 100 app available": 

This looks really cool! 
I do appreciate when an app has 'reward' activities that are also engaging, and support the content in the app. In an app like this, issuing a challenge to find a certain number the fastest, or select every number with the digit '4' in it within a time frame would be a hit with my kiddos! 
On another question, it's important to me that a counting app, particularly in a 100's format like this one, that I can highlight and select different columns, rows and randoms easily. :) 

Thanks Rachael!

Teaching Math Skills with Technology:
Common Core Standards K.OA.2 Add and Subtract within 10

Today's math lesson was a review of ways to add to ten. First, we practiced on our fingers- a tool that is always with us!

Then, we used a great free app- Find Sums by Math Tappers Their description from the iTunes store"MathTappers: Find Sums is a simple game designed to help learners to make sense of addition (and subtraction as a related operation), and then to support them in developing accuracy and improving their speed."

The students used a ten frame and selected numbers that added up to ten. The game tracks accuracy and speed, so the children kept playing to try to get 100% accuracy and fast. I was amazed at how many kids were chanting '8 and 2' '7 and 3' '5 and 5' as they played. They math addends until are are done.  They can also add up to 20, and 100 using the apples.

Right after, We used a deck of cards with A-J and the 10's Go Fish with the cheat sheet printable from www.kidscount1234.com by Shari Sloane "10s Go Fish - This game is played just like "Go Fish." Instead of asking for a card to match your card, you have to ask for a card that would add with one of your cards to make a sum of 10." Thanks Shari for your awesome math games! My students love them.

Using fingers, apples and ten frames, and playing cards my kindergartners "got" how to add to ten!

Counting with Dr. Jean and the iPad

My daughter was using our iPod to listen to some songs by Dr. Jean this weekend and while listening to Techno Count to 100 for the fourth time I thought of how in the past I used Dr. Jeans' music a lot in my kindergarten. Since discovering all the amazing song/videos on YouTube that help my students see and hear and say the ABCs or sight words or count I rarely use my kinder music collection anymore. It occurred to me though, that the songs, especially the number songs my daughter listened to over and over could work great on the iPad. They did! Not only do my students play them and sing along during playtime, but when paired with a good app, they enhance learning. So, I played Techno Count to 100 and had kids open up the Counting Board app (currently free on the iPad). They put all the numbers facedown and touched the boxes as the numbers were announced. I was able to monitor and LOVED the way the students counted along, touching the number as they heard the number. I will be curious to see if the kids who STILL don't know how to count to 100, or identify numbers will do after several days of practicing like this? Then I played The Country Countdown 1-20 song by Dr. Jean and did the same thing-Here's a video of one child in action. It was terrific!

We know that the more pathways to learning, the stronger the learning experience is- in this lesson, my students were hearing, saying/singing, seeing and touching numbers. Later in the day, I played Bingo Bango Bongo (I love the song!) and we used the Counting Board app again to practice skip counting. The color patterns in the app are especially helpful for skip counting!

Best Apps for Kindergarten and the Teacher

Note, I will update when I find more apps that are worth paying for.  Check back for the updated list.  I will post a best of the free apps list with links and descriptions later as I load them on my class iPads.

There are so many wonderful free apps (THANK YOU DEVELOPERS- you are helping to change the future of so may children through putting quality learning activities in their hands!) that choosing the ones to pay for is difficult.  My classroom budget has been cut the last few years and my family budget is going to be taking a big hit this year too.  So, I do not take choosing which apps to pay for a class set of lightly.

My criteria: Needs to meet my definition of a Teaching Tool.
*Teaching tools should improve traditional learning activities by:
1.)  saving time.
2.)  allowing for differentiation to meet each child's learning needs.
3.)  motivating reluctant learners.
4.)  make learning fun.
+Ease of use. Ie. Intuitive
+low price (even with VPP it adds up so quickly!)
+teaches and/or reinforces
-lite versions, or in app purchase versions
-obnoxious noises, and even worse 'wrong' buzzers
-expensive... Even with 1/2 off via VPP a set of 24 apps still adds up, quickly.
-Complex menus...
-tells their answer was wrong, but the correct answer is not shown

Recommended paid apps for Student iPads:
MATH
Montessori 100 board
Well thought out 100 board, students can place tiles in order counting by 1's, and by 2's odd or even.   They have a new app out too apparently that has skip counting by 2's-10's that I haven't tried.
Park Math
I love the varied activities and three levels of difficulty.

LITERACY
Word wizard
WOW!  A moveable alphabet that reads what the child (or adult, as I have fun with it too!) writes.  It highlights words that are misspelled or spelled correctly.  You can also do spelling quizzes.  I need to try the full version, I have only used the beta so far but it was amazing.
Pocket phonics
I really like the format, and combination of letter writing and sound pronunciation.  The word games are great phonics practice too.
Montessori crosswords
By the same maker of Word Wizard.  Simple crossword puzzles and a movable alphabet I've used for making words lessons. Has three levels of difficulty and great scaffolding support.



MULTI-SUBJECT
Teach me K, or maybe Teach Me: 1st
for a measly $.99 this is a powerhouse app.  Works on phonics, math skills, sight words, etc.  Best of all it actually teaches and provides support if the child doesn't answer correctly.

Recommended paid apps for Teacher iPad:
Stick Pick 
Throw away your Popsicle sticks!  Pick a student randomly.  Gives ideas of questions to ask and allows you to evaluate and track student answers.
Decide Now!
Make your own spinners
iplanlessons
no more paper planners... use this instead
Creative Genius
fun fun ideas to spark discussions and creative activities
ABC It!
I would like to put this on student iPads (I would if it was free!) but plan on just having it on mine for now.  Has a neat way of presenting ABCs for letter names, sign language and letter sounds.
Dexteria
I may pay for a class set of this, after I test it with students.   You should definitely have a copy for your students who need fine motor practice.
Whiteboard
by Splashtop Lets you control your computer from your iPad and use it as an interactive whiteboard.  You still need a projector but you don't need a $1000 whiteboard anymore.

Best Apps for Education

I am experimenting using GoogleDocs as a way to put information about apps I've tried and recommend in a format that easy to view and update. This is a work in progress. Please see my Archive or Pages for apps I've previously recommended until I transfer all the apps into the form. I will be updating the spreadsheet with my recommendations as time permits. I hope to make it sortable by price, rating, and grade level soon.

Link to the webpage form of my "Apps for Education" spreadsheet which includes an iTunes link to the app, the price (at the time I entered the info), suggested grade levels, subjects covered by the app, and my informal rating of the app.

Click *here* to suggest an app to be added to my list. I reserve the right to modify or delete your suggestion if: it's a duplicate, or I really don't agree with your review.

view the page from within the blog:

Teaching Tools: Montessori Apps

Two of my favorite apps to use as teaching tools in my classroom are based upon the Montessori Approach to education.  For those unfamiliar with Montessori, I've copied some information from http://www.montessori.edu below my review of the apps.


One that I have found very useful is the Hundred Board: Montessori Approach to Math ($2.99).  My students chose to play this one even during free choice time when they can choose from any app on the iPad.  


It takes the place in my classroom of number board and 100 tiles.  If you can imagine the difficulty of organizing 100 number tiles for each student (and what to do with the set when they lose one piece!).  More importantly though, is the vocalization of each number as it's selected, and the child is unable to place a number incorrectly.  In the last update they added the choice to sequence the numbers with "control" meaning the numbers are displayed to help students pick the next number.  The numbers can be placed by ones, evens or odds.


The same creator (Rantek Inc.) made the Roman Numerals! ($1.99) app in the same format as the Hundred Board.  The student can pick to go from 1-100 by ones, or evens or odds using Roman Numerals.  I would suggest this app for grades 3&up.


A new app, to me, that I will use on a regular basis is ABC Sequence ($1.99), which is similar to the previous apps, in that the student will put the alphabet in order, using capital or lowercase letters.  The letter name is announced "G is for giraffe" when the child selects it.


The Montessori Teaching method is evident in these apps - "Teach by teaching, not by correcting  Instead the child's effort and work is respected as it is. The teacher, through extensive observation and record-keeping, plans individual projects to enable each child to learn what he needs in order to improve."  -www.montessori.edu  All of these apps do not have sounds or graphics that indicate the child made a mistake, nor do they move on to the next question without allowing the child to find the right answer.  Instead the incorrect choice is minimized and the child tries again.


The beauty of most of the apps produced in the Montessori Approach is their simplicity. 
The 100 board, ABC sequence, as well as the Geography app are powerful applications and ideal for classroom use.  The following apps are beautiful and simple too, and may be found useful in preschool or special education classrooms.  A Montessori Approach to Vocabulary focuses on common vocabulary objects; a shadow of an object is shown for the child to guess the object, then the photo can be shown and the word can be pronounced aloud.   A Pre-Language Exercise- Opposites shows two opposite words (big & small) and a picture of objects that are opposite in size. Brown Stair and Pink Tower asks the student to follow a plan to recreate a tower/stair combination by selecting the next smallest or largest piece in the pattern.  Both my 2 year old and 7 year old were happy to play through the levels.

"Montessori (pronounced MON-tuh-SORE-ee) education was founded in 1907 by Dr. Maria Montessori, the first woman in Italy to become a physician. She based her educational methods on scientific observation of children's learning processes. Guided by her discovery that children teach themselves, Dr. Montessori designed a "prepared environment" in which children could freely choose from a number of developmentally appropriate activities. Now, nearly a century after Maria Montessori's first casa dei bambini ("children's house") in Rome, Montessori education is found all over the world, spanning ages from birth to adolescence."  www.montessori.edu



I have purchased 100 Board and sampled the lite versions of Geography and ABC sequence.  A developer for Rantek Inc, shared codes with me so that I could review the above mentioned apps.  Thank you!

Another favorite Montessori based app created by another developer (L'escapadou) is Montessori Crosswords ($2.99)- the crosswords are great for spelling words from simple CVC to long vowels and compound words, but I especially like the movable alphabet for use in my making words lessons.  


Most of these apps have a lite version for you to try before you buy!  So go ahead, try them!

Teaching Tools: Math Facts

In my classroom I focus on friends of 5 and 10 (all the ways to add up to 5 and 10).  I use Park Math and a couple others (I reviewed them already here http://digitalkindergarten.blogspot.com/2011/01/teaching-tools-math-app-park-math-and.html) to teach K math skills.

In my role as a mommy though, I have a second and third grader who need to practice their math facts for fluency.  I have found several apps that meet my definition of a Teaching Tool and those are:

1) Rocket Math, Free (and worth buying full version for $.99- which I just did after convincing myself of how great it is!)

41 launches and only 2 medals?  My toddler has been helping me!

Rocket Math (made by Stack the States and Stack the Countries developer Dan Russell-Pinson) takes place in, you guessed it- space.  The player builds a rocket (many design options to interest kids and make them think about physics as well) and attempts to launch it into outer space.  You purchase parts when you solve math equations (chose from easy, hard+,-,x,/) to earn money.  If you successfully craft a rocket that can make it into space (not easy for the non scientific minded like me) you earn a medal depending on how well you know math subjects like money, odd/even numbers, patterning, etc. 

Fun Math!

Features: Up to five player profiles, ability to work out a problem on a scribble pad, great graphics and a really fun balance of math, creativity, science!

Rocket Math meets my criteria for
Teaching tools should improve traditional learning activities by (4.75/5 star rating):
****   1.)  saving time. (replace flash card time, on multiple subjects, with this practice- however kids could spend a lot of time fiddling with their rockets rather than the math- my suggestion would be to make them earn a certain amount of money before they can create or modify a rocket)
*****   2.)  allow for differentiation to meet each child's learning needs.  (Can choose from 5 (free version) 8 (full) missions when rocket is successfully launched- such as money, time, shapes... and add,subtract, multiply, divide to earn money) and 6 levels of difficulty.
***** 3.)  motivating reluctant learners.  (My 7 1/2 year old chooses to play it on his own even with non-educational games on his iPad).
*****4.)  make learning fun. (I think it's fun too!)

Others to check out- my husband says I need to clean my house and get off the blog, plus my child is out in the snow and I haven't heard from him in a while and we all know how dangerous silence is! so I am not going to go into detail... yet.





2. Long Division Drills by Power Math Apps (3.75/5 stars)- not extremely motivating, but good practice 


3. Times Tables (4.0/5) good drills along with modeling of how multiplication works.  Again, try the free version but I think it's worth buying.


4. Math Circus- (4.0/5)   not a practice app, but rather it has short clips that teach about multiplication and various strategies that can be used.  I make my son watch it (HE LOVES TV) when he struggles to multiply his 7's and 8's.  


5. Math Ninja (4.5/5 stars)- FUN!  throw ninja style weapons at robots who are attacking- earn more weapons by completing math drills- add,subtract, multiply, divide.  My favorite feature- if you get the answer wrong, it tells you the correct solution and you type it in.  I HATE (bad me, I'm trying to not use HATE! but we are all adults here right?) apps that simply move on to the next problem.  Free version available, but of course I ended up buying this one.

Teaching Tools*: Math App "Park Math" and other math apps

How can you utilize iPads as a mathematical teaching tool?  With a few good apps of course!


I really REALLY like Park Math (TT* rating 4.75/5 stars) by Duck Duck Moose.  I think I paid $1.99 and it's worth all 199 pennies.  They have some other apps (mostly songs I think) that are highly rated but I haven't paid for.  Yet.  I may cave in soon.  


I think I mentioned before that I have several great programs and websites I use on PC's for literacy skills (www.starfall.com, tumblebooks.com, storylineonline.net, Kid Pix, Phonics Activities- came with my reading program) but hardly anything that worked on math skills without going to websites with too many ads or links to other pages. 


I had hoped to find some really great math apps.  So far I have only found one I wholeheartedly love for my classroom: Park Math HD.    


There are 3 levels of difficulty; and several activities within the app.
counting to simple-20, medium-50, harder- 100  (as a bunny swings, each swing is counted out loud and displayed on a carrot.  I tell my kids they should be counting along.)


Addition (simple 1+2, medium 3+5, harder 9+7)  This part is great- there are ducks on a climber (for ex. 4 on top with numbers 1-4 on their bellies).  the math sentence is on the side 4+3=? with three choices (5, 6, 7).  You can solve right away or click on the three ducks on the ground- they join the other ducks, now there are 7 ducks numbered 1-7.  Press 7 and they all slide down.
Balance- mice are on an unbalanced seesaw.  They have #'s on their bellies- for example 1-8 on the left and 1-3 on the right.  There are more bears on the ground.  You can add or take away bears to make it balance.  
Subtraction- An apple tree has 9 apples on it.  At the top of the page it reads- If 8 apples fall, how many remain?  1,2,3 are your answers.  You can touch and make 8 apples fall off, leaving one.
Sorting- medium level has 6 dogs on a bench.  You drag them in size order from small to large.  Or, in numeral order, or light to dark...
Pattering-  on medium level there is an AAB pattern in a beach scene; duck duck xylophone, duck ? and four choices for the next object.  Next are ABCD and ABB and ABC patterns.
Feed the Hippo- you are asked to feed the hippo a specific # of food items off a plate.  Of the activates in this app I think this is the weakest.  I don't think it's challenging enough even on level 3 for my students.  However, the strength of the other activities make up for this activity's simplicity.  And the kids do like feeding the hippo.


So, altogether there are 7 activities, and three difficulty levels...  and it's a great app for pre-k-1 math practice.  


Another math app I have used in my classroom is Toddler Counting (TT* rating 4/5 stars) -just don't read the toddler part of the title to the kids!  the app icon is 123, and the app is simple.  A certain # of objects are displayed (two difficulty levels- although I have only seen #'s from 2-20 so far.)  I introduced it to my students using the document camera by having them guess how many (estimation skills- just make sure to "flash" the screen then cover otherwise they will count, not guess.)  Then one student touches each object- the number is displayed and read aloud as each is touched.  Then a new group of objects pops up- guess and count.  As I said, this is simple... but some of my kids need to work on 1:1 correspondence and the others will benefit from estimation practice.  I think this cost $.99.    Skills: Number recognition, counting to 20 (at least), 1:1 correspondence, practicing point to count, and more.  


Yes we could do this with the teddy bear counters, but the teddy bears don't count with you or show the number.  Plus... there's one teacher in my class and 23 students who need to practice counting.  7 kids can use my iPads, while I work with another group, and the other groups play math games or use math manipulatives.  I bought this one specifically for my struggling counters/number recognizers.  I think it beats flash cards anyday.


The last "math app" that is dock worthy- again, the apps that I have kids use during centers so I know they are on task and working on specific skills- is 123 Tracer (4/5 stars on my TT* rating scale)- there's a dino on the icon.  This app has a free version, I of course paid for the full once I determined I liked it (did I mention my app addiction?).  Since there is a lite version I am not going to go into detail about this app.  However, the full version has numbers 1-10, 1-25, 1-50, 1-100 that can be done (activities are  writing #'s , counting, addition, subtraction in random mode or sequentially.  It has some place value practice, connect the dots.... and more.  Try the lite version!  


Be sure to tell me if you've discovered a great math app.  Or website that doesn't have ads.  


*Teaching tools should improve traditional learning activities by:
1.)  saving time.
2.)  allow for differentiation to meet each child's learning needs.
3.)  motivating reluctant learners.
4.)  make learning fun.