How to use the iPad for homeschooling??

[mommyto4QT]

My DH is interested in getting our family an iPad. He says he has read they can be really useful for homeschooling.  This is our 2nd year homeschooling and we have an 8 year old, 6 year old & 5 year old. 

 

I know about getting Apps for an iPad (I do have an iPhone), but besides using Apps, I am looking for ideas of how an iPad can be useful for schooling/educational purposes.  If you own one, how do you utilize it and what do your kids do with it?  

 

Also, what are the "must have" apps for the iPad that are helpful for homeschooling?  What apps do you find good for educational purposes?    How often do you use the iPad?  

 

I am trying to figure out it would really be a beneficial tool for our family or just another "toy" or distraction!!  :)

 

thanks!

 

 

[freerange]

Posting so that I'll be reminded to come back & write a longer reply tomorrow - I spotted this just as I was about to shut down for the night.

[Garga]

I hate technology.  My DH loves technology.  Out of the blue and without me asking for it (or wanting it), he bought me a refurbished iPad.  I didn't even know what the stinkin' thing was.

 

But after just a few days working with it, I started to LOVE it!  

 

Specifically for school?  Hmmm. Lemme think.  It's just such an integral part of our lives that it gets used all day every day.  Here's how it was used for school in the past two days:

 

As a timer so we get done each class on time.  

DH found a flashcard app for their Latin words.  

To show a map of how the world would have looked if/when all the continents were stuck together.

To look up the pronunciation of denotation.  (DEN-o or DEEN-o?  I couldn't remember.)

To see a moving example of what happens in the three types of earthquakes (plates move apart, together, or slide against each other.)

To watch CNN Student News while we ate breakfast.

To look for a picture of a tesseract.

To listen to "Music to Help You focus" on youtube while they drew pictures. (And it worked!  They settled right down!)

 

That's all I can remember.  I may be forgetting something.  But the list is longer than I thought it would be. The more I wrote, the more I remembered.  

 

Granted, each of those things could have been handled a different way, but the fact that they could ALL be handled on the one device is what makes it so easy.  The laptop may take a few minutes to warm up and it's bulky.  But the ipad is warmed up immediately--within a fraction of a second!  And we can carry it all around with us in one hand.  

 

I love the thing.  It's ridiculous how much I love it.  It keeps the day flowing instead of stopping the flow of the day.  

 

[Lots of boys]

Interested too

[Kim in Appalachia]

We are using the NASA educational app to watch short videos.  We also use Keynote to make projects.  There are good math apps for drill, and flashcard apps (though my kids prefer real flashcards). 

 

Right now we mostly use it for SmartMusic, which my kids use to practice violin. 

[AK_Mom4]

Metronome and tuning app 'cause we have musicians here.  This is a HUGE use here because I wont let them take my real (expensive) metronome away from the piano.....

 

Notability for using the PDFs.  DD12 has a couple of courses that come in PDF format - I load them up in Notability and she writes in the answers directly on the iPad.

Multiplication and Spelling apps (though she is aging out of these)

Stack the continents/Stack the Countries - geography fun!

Library app - putting regular books on hold, renewing books and checking out ebooks/audiobooks

Nook App and Override Apps for reading/listening to those ebooks/audiobooks we check out.

Netflix - just for educational documentaries of course!  ;)

Internet - for looking up just about everything without going over to the computer....

 

 

[happypamama]

I use it for planning -- the HomeschoolHelper app and note-taking apps.

It acts as an e-reader.

I can put music on it.

Quick internet access instead of stopping to head to the desktop machine.

Use it as a whiteboard or notepad; DD prefers to do her math on it, and it does make corrections easier.

I scanned math tests and turned them into PDFs, so they can be written on directly. Particularly nice if you school outside the home frequently. Last year, I used it when I taught a co-op class -- I had the photos to show the boys on it, as well as my lesson plans (with annotations), and the music we listened to (not to mention the book we were reading).

Curricula like Mr. Q -- too big to print, not great on a Kindle, but very nice on the iPad.

Drill and practice games/apps -- math, geography, etc.

Mango language app -- very nice so that the kids can take it to a quiet place in the house.

Entertain the toddler when needed, LOL. (I don't do this very often.)

Today's Document app from the National Archives -- I have the iPad at the breakfast table, and we look at that app a few times a week.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Garga--please pass along the Latin flashcard app??  Pretty please?

 

I use my iPad for homeschooling and many other things every day.  I have several .pdf documents on mine--answer keys for math, SOTW Activity Guide (I like it for reading out the map-coloring instructions, especially), teacher's manuals.  We are using Mr Q science  this year.  I printed out the worksheets, but they read the chapters on the iPad, and when we are doing worksheets/activities, I can open the parent guide right there at the table and make sure we are answering things correctly, have experiment instructions, etc.  Saves me tons of paper and carrying books around.   We have a stargazer apps, math apps, Spelling City (which is really nice--one can do spelling on the iPad, one can do it on the PC if necessary).I use it for cooking and baking.  I know we joke about Pinterest being a time-sucker (and it can be), but I adore the Pinterest app for easy location of recipes and other things that I want to get to at a moment's notice.  We read on it, watch videos on it, play games on it.  I browse this forum and FB when I have a few minutes or I'm nursing my baby.  I make Amazon purchases, I text, etc etc etc. 

 

I'll admit, when I bought it, it was mostly just because I wanted one.  I already had an iPhone and I wasn't sure how much I'd really use the iPad.  I've been AMAZED at all the things I do with it now.  And yeah, I could do a lot of them with the iPhone, technically, but the larger screen on the iPad (I have a mini) really makes things a lot more manageable--especially reading .pdf docs. 

 

 

[Alte Veste Academy]

I started a thread a while back about this and got great answers. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/447239-has-the-ipad-revolutionized-anything-or-everything-about-your-homeschool/?hl=%2Brevolutionized

[freerange]

DD2 has dyspraxia, so handwriting is slow, painful & difficult to read, so we've just made the switch to working exclusively on the ipad mini. We use PDF Master & PDF Splicer, which have free versions to try out, for our MEP maths, and for subjects where I've used TInyscan to scan in a couple of pages at a time from a textbook. She types other written work into Pages, watches youtube on it (Chinese with Mike, Crash Course Science, and lots of others) Brain warmups like Flow Free,  Finger Physics, Nintaii, Puzzle Agent, Om Nom, Rainbow Web, play board games like Risk without having to get all the pieces out, Pipiatum for Latin, read ebooks from the library via Overdrive.

 

A couple of weeks ago we had a week of needing to take her sister to a camp each day, so we took the ipad with us & worked in the library, in the park, in the car whilst waiting for her, etc. 

[Mom0012]

I haven't used it a ton, but my son is taking a math course called TabletClass and he uses the iPad for that.  I also use it as a timer for math speed drills. Other than that, we haven't used it much for school as of yet.

[Garga]

Garga--please pass along the Latin flashcard app?? Pretty please?

 

 

Looks like it's just called "Flashcards." My dh got it Monday and I haven't used it for myself yet. When I search for it in the app store, it's the second choice. Looks like white cards on a wooden table. There is a [+] after the title.

[Guest Alice B.]

Hi Everyone!

 

I started using an iPad to homeschool my 8 year old daughter not very long ago. One of the first apps I downloaded was News-O-Matic, a friend of mine recommended it to me. It is pretty much a daily newspaper for kids. They publish new articles every week day, and I use it to get my kids to read daily. The articles are about the current news and my kids really like it. If you want to go further, you can also sign up for what they call a "teacher Guide" which give guidelines on how to use each article. It was really the app that got me to use the iPad on a daily basis, you should try it! Since then I did some research on homeschooling blogs, downloaded other apps, and it's really helpful!

 

Hope this helps :)