iPads in EYFS
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| image: www.eyfstracker.com |
Since November I have been working 2 days a week teaching Computing from Nursery to Year 6. Within Nursery I have done some basic stuff tied into the the new curriculum, including some simple programming of the Bee-Bots and some work using the app A.L.E.X. Most recently though, I have been planning activities using the few iPads in school. This has enabled me to teach some basic core Digital Literacy and IT skills at an early age (two out of the three main elements of the new curriculum). More importantly though it has really helped with developing pupils' speaking and listening skills, which is probably more important at this young age. I reckon that iPads are a must within any EYFS setting! Here's some of the ways I have used them recently...
ThingLink
Pupils have been doing the topic 'Food' and have been learning about the importance of healthy eating. After a brief discussion, I asked pupils to draw a picture of their favourite healthy food. I then recorded each pupil talking about why they chose that as their favourite healthy food. In small groups and using the pictures they had drawn, we then designed a poster in Pic Collage. Using the app ThingLink, I then made their posters interactive by linking the pupil's videos to their matching pictures. You can view their work here.
Here is another example of a ThingLink poster (made with year 1 pupils this time and linked to their superhero's topic)...
And again, here is a link to our school blog post about it
And again, here is a link to our school blog post about it
Tiny Tap
TinyTap is a fantastic app that allows you to create your own interactive games. This tutorial video I made shows you how...
With the children helping me, we created this game so that they could practice their understanding of some of the initial sounds that they had been working on in class.
You can read more about how I have used TinyTap and view other games I have made by reading this previous blog post.
Explain everything is a must have app! It is basically a screen casting app, which means that you can annotate images or draw on the built in whiteboard - whilst recording your voice at the same time! This then saves as a Quicktime video. In the past I have had pupils using it to make teaching videos to explain concepts in maths. Just before Christmas though, we used it in Nursery to re-tell the Christmas story.
Here is the animation we made...
And here is a video showing you how we actually did it...
My Story
This is probably the most reliable and easy to use eBook creator app that I have used for pupils in KS1/EYFS (for KS2 pupils I would recommend using Book Creator). The pupils had been studying the Three Billy Goats Gruff story so we decided to plan an alternative version using different characters and a slightly different ending! After planning a simple story board we then designed the pages together and the children then recorded the narration and dialogue between the characters.
If you have iBooks on your Apple Mac or device you can view it here.
Note: If you haven't got a dropbox account click on 'Download' rather than sign in and then instead of creating an account just select 'No thanks continue to download'.
One thing that was slightly disappointing though, was that saving it as a movie instead of a book didn't work. This was a bit frustrating as I wanted those without an Apple device to be able to view it as well.
Pic Collage
Pic collage is a really simple, easy to use app that can be used right across the curriculum. One of my favourite ways to use it, is having pupils record their work during science investigations. This time though, as part of some simple Data Handling work, pupils in Nursery made their own pictograms to show what they had for their breakfast.
Videolicious
Children in reception class were studying the topic "People who help us." After some initial discussion, I then showed the children how to search for images and save them to the iPad camera roll. In their small groups, they then found images and saved them to a shared Dropbox folder. Children were then asked to plan a sentence or two about that person, focussing on who they are, what they do or how they help them. Using Videolicious, pupils then took it in turns to record their sentence to match up with each picture. Here is an example of the kind of thing you can easily create...
Aurasma
Once we had made the videos, to really bring them to life we then created this interactive display using the app Aurasma. Now when others scan the picture of them dressed as somebody who helps them on the display board, they get to watch the video that they made!
For a step by step guide on how to set up Aurasma, read this previous blog post about using Aurasma to promote the end of year 6 productions.
For further ideas on using iPads within EYFS, I found this blog post really helpful. In fact I would highly recommend reading more of Lee's posts if you are looking to develop the use of iPads within your teaching and learning (particularly if you are interested in using them to enhance writing opportunities). I also find this blog by David Mitchell really useful for ideas and activities using iPads.
If you would like me to work with your school on developing the use of iPads either within EYFS or other phases throughout school, please do get in touch!
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