Category Archives: Story Books

May 9, 2012 · 9:26 pm

TMF! It’s Okay to Have Too Much Fun!

I love to collect sayings and if you came to my house you would see them all over my house. One of my favourites is “It’s Okay to Have Too Much Fun! or TMF!

Yesterday the children asked to watch the Monster at the End of this Book during storytime/eating time. As I suffer from allergies I leapt at the opportunity to save my voice and set up the story. I had the special helper of the day turn the pages as he had already gobbled up his sandwich and was eager to have the job. It was delightful to watch the engagement of the students in the story, but especially the engagement of the page turner!! During the story, the monster pleads with the reader to not turn the page by clasping his hands together and saying “Please, please don’t turn the page!” . The student turning the pages on the iPad actually was so involved in the story that he was acting out the story as it happened complete with pleading hands! Magic! Definitely TOO MUCH FUN! Of course, then we had to listen to Another Monster at the End of this Book! Love those monsters!

I have continued to bring my iPad to school each day and when the children have completed their independent projects they have the opportunity to sit at my desk on my chair two at a time working with the apps I have downloaded onto my iPad. Two other children sit on my other big chair at our classroom computer. Little people in big chairs totally wrapped up in what they are doing is definitely Too Much Fun to watch! Needless to say those chairs fill up fast. At the end of the day I shut down my iPad and shut down the apps that have been opened and I get to do a little survey to see which apps are the most popular… Really fun! The Monster at the End of this Book and Peter Rabbit are really popular which tells me that I need to find more story apps!

The class WIKI is also really popular on the computer. It is neat to see what their favourite sites are. I need to find a way to let two children use the headphones… There must be a gizmo for that!

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Filed under iPads, Peter Rabbit, Story Books

Tagged as another monster at the end of this book, Peter Rabbit, The Monster at the End of this Book

April 11, 2012 · 5:44 pm

25 and Counting!

Today I introduced a new app to a small group of children who had finished their independent assignments. Actually, I didn’t have to introduce it…. I mentioned that I had a new app for them to try and was about to explain how to use it when the child calmly pointed out that it wasn’t necessary because “they could figure it out!” And they were right! I had found a storybook app based on Toy Story. It lets the child read the story or have the story read to them. I like this one because it highlights the words as they are being read. It also has a variety of other activities that the children really enjoy! The children taught each other about the app and they were off!

Over the past few months we have been experimenting with iPads in our classroom. I have been having a grand time researching other websites and searching for ideas and apps that would work well in a classroom. Tonight I decided to review our journey and just see how many different apps or strategies we have used so far on the iPads. Guess what! If I have counted correctly today was number 25!

Now I am thinking and wondering if we could get to 100… I would sure love to try!

Another Monster?

We have continued to have fun with the Peter Rabbit apps. It is hard to figure out which app is the most popular. They all seem to be getting a lot of use! I love the coloring one in the official Peter Rabbit website app. The magic paintbrush colors the pictures in the same lovely colours that can be found in the books.

We did a story map based on the story Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. You can’t go wrong with a Margaret Wise Brown story! The children sequenced the story and then we made some boo-boo bunnies for them to use as a story prop to retell the stories! We didn’t manage to get them all finished on the day we did the story maps so we didn’t send them home until the next day when everyone could take their bunnies home! They were pretty popular bunnies and they had a lovely time “resting” in their Easter bunny baskets.

I love the app The Monster at the End of this Book so I couldn’t resist getting the next story called Another Monster at the End of this Book. Really cute story! I used the projector to show the story using my special adaptor cord so we could all see the story on the big screen. One of the students took charge of turning the pages. Another hit!

Poor Grover! He sure doesn’t like monsters!

Peter Rabbit has an App!

Today we continued our bunny projects with the beloved Beatrix Potter story Peter Rabbit! I am a bit of an Beatrix Potter nut. I have all the books and we have been reading some of them. I also have a really good version on video. So, of course, I went looking for Peter Rabbit apps! I found three in the short time that I went looking and we tried them all today! All were big hits! Not everyone got a chance to work with them yet but we had several children demo them on the big screen using the projector. I have a special cable that lets me show whatever is on my iPad using the projector. That makes it really easy to share with the students and I always have lots of volunteers who want to be the “demo guy”!

We watched the video first today. I had already read the story previously. Then we did an sequencing activity. I chose 12 pictures from the book, and the corresponding text. The children had to sequence the pictures, find the corresponding text, and then collate it altogether into a personal little Peter Rabbit book. We also made a paper bag puppet to go with the book.

Later we worked with the story again using the three iPad apps I found. One app allows you to either read the story yourself or have it read to you. It has neat little pop-ups on each page that the children enjoyed. It is called PopOutPeter!

There is also another Peter Rabbit app created by iActivecom that also reads the story. It has a neat addition in that each page can be made into a jigsaw puzzle. That was fun!

The last Peter Rabbit app is the one from the Official Peter Rabbit Site. It also tells the story. It has some neat features as well. There are some fun games and pictures to colour. I liked the coloring one where you could use the magic pencil that colored the picture the same as the book. The games are cute too. I suspect that all three apps will be popular picks.