In what ways, if any, have you incorporated iPad usage in your schooling?

[StaceyinLA]

My grandkids have iPads (the older ones have Apple Pencil compatible ones), and I told my daughters I'd try and find out if anyone used iPads in their schooling, and, if so, how.

Any particular things you recommend?

The kids are lower elementary, but love doing anything with the iPads, and I think it would be a fun motivator for them to have work on the iPad to look forward to after the basics.

Thanks!

[Heathermomster]

Math apps for practice, Inspiration app for outlining/mindmapping, audiobooks, Scratch Jr, stop motion videos, FT with friends who live across town, and typing documents using a Bluetooth keyboard.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Heathermomster

[MeaganS]

Prodigy, ABC Mouse, EPIC reading, listened to audio books on audible and Librivox, xtramath, piano lessons through Hoffman Academy, educational games like Dragonbox and Slice Fractions or Stack the States. 

[Janeway]

Duolingo and some other foreign language apps.  Starfall, Stack the States, logic puzzle type games.

 

But honestly, it has not worked with us. I have educational games on there, but they just seek out the toy games.

[Sarah0000]

The ones I count as schooly are Dragonbox, Endless Spanish, Logic of English phonograms, Piano Maestro, and Stack the States.

My kids also use the iPad to research topics, practice drawing with videos, and sometimes use our school websites. But that's just because it's sometimes more convenient to prop the iPad on the table rather than use the computer.

We use a Windows tablet to program Edison robots. Maybe an iPad would work with that as well.

[Farrar]

All the Dragonbox apps.

We did Brainpop at that age... is that still a thing? I know they had an app.

[HomeAgain]

Oh, lots of ways!
Apps, definitely, and downloading books from Project Gutenberg to read in full size.  Mostly toward the end of middle school and into high school it because used more for electronic textbooks and sending in work to outside teachers.  We used Notability and my kid could write directly on the pdf, attach a page of graph paper and work out any math problems, and send it straight off to either me or his online teacher.  It worked especially well for concepts he had trouble with, because he could erase or redo a page over again.

[sweet2ndchance]

The Singing Walrus, Super Simple Songs, Scratch Garden and a couple others have great kids educational songs and videos for filling in a few minutes here and there when I need something to keep my first grader entertained but I don't want something that is pure eye candy. The Scratch Garden video about contractions is hilarious lol. He watches these mostly on the tablet when we are schooling on the go.

[lots of little ducklings]

I’m pretty anti-screen (the kids would tease too much for it if I got them started... I have 5 kids from Kindy to grade 5) but we did get an iPad for a few educational apps last fall and I especially love it for spelling. The app (Spelling Notebook) allows me to create the lists, and then the kids use it for practice and testing (emailing the results to me). I love passing that tedious job off to a computer and the kids’ spelling has improved pretty dramatically because they enjoy practicing.

Quizlet is handy too.  We’ve primarily used it for Spanish.

I should add that we don’t have games on it, so that hasn’t been a problem for us.  If I had games as well, I’d need a way to digitally monitor them/disable them during school hours. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by lots of little ducklings

[StaceyinLA]

Thanks for the suggestions! 

Any ideas for incorporating the Apple Pencil? I'm thinking my grandson would enjoy writing stuff a lot more if he could do it on his iPad (novelty and all).

Also, you can absolutely monitor time spent per day, AND per app on iPads. It breaks down time spent on a particular app, so you'd easily be able to tell if they played games during school time. 😉

[sweet2ndchance]

I have absolutely no idea how an Apple Pencil works, is it just a stylus?

If so, we've really enjoyed the Writing Wizard app by L'Escapadou and Letter School - Learn To Write by Letterschool Enabling Learning. I do remember that Writing Wizard allows you to enter your own words for the kids to practice writing in the paid app. I can't remember if the Letter School one could do that too.

[TX Native]

2 hours ago, sweet2ndchance said:

I have absolutely no idea how an Apple Pencil works, is it just a stylus?

 

The Apple Pencil is like a stylus, but writes onto the screen exactly like a pen or pencil, more precise than a stylus.  I use it in combo with the notability app when needing to fill out and sign forms for the kids and email the pdf to someone.   I think artists can do some pretty detailed drawings via the Apple Pencil vs a stylus. 

For the iPad and homeschool.....it’s like a teacher assistant to me.  I keep track of my records, test scores, books read lists, attendance, and such mostly through files on the Notability app.  I keep quite a bit in the calendar and do all my online umbrella school reporting via the iPad.  We use YouTube a lot to pull up supplemental videos for science, history, art, etc... I save maps and artist prints to photos and pull those up as needed.  My kids watch quite a bit of drawing and how to videos on the iPad.  My youngest does BJU history videos,  The kids use the metronome app when practicing music. The kids also get links via email from their music teachers as practice helps.   I look up anything I am unsure about that comes up as a question from them.  If we still did MEP math, I would have dc use their interactive math pages online.  When we are learning hymns, we pull up a video with lyrics and sing along.  I have the larger screen version so all our iBooks read like a full textbook page.  I had used the free Mr Q life science download and taught it reading off the screen.  Oh, and the kids ask Siri random stuff like “Why are fire trucks red?”  (you should ask Siri that....it’s quite an interesting answer) .  Other apps that come in handy are the calculator, Khan Academy, stop motion videos, math speed drills, geography games, and Sudoku puzzles (for when I’m just waiting to work with one child or for someone to finish up a subject for me to check here and there)   ETA:  also, audiobooks

Edited May 17, 2019 by TX Native

[Melissa in Australia]

Reading Eggs and Star Fall for twins

I Had an OT once recommended a program called  School Writing that you use a stylus for - we didn't have room on the ipad to fit it though.

 

[Melissa in Australia]

DS15 uses Siri to answer questions on what words mean etc. like how we of an older generation would use a dictionary

 

[Ausmumof3]

Kids have cheap androids but we have used both them and my iPhone quite a bit

lots of curriculum use public domain reading so I put it on the kids tablets and they read on screen

we have used Matholia in the past though we need to get back into it to get our moneys worth.

we use various apps for foreign language

not tablet but pc based we use Picta dicta for some latin

when we were doing quark for science we would ask google for word definitions to get more information about the stuff than the program had

we use a night sky app to help locate and identify constellations and star locations

we extensively use Libby - the online e book library - dd especially borrows lots on there both books and audio

we watch cnn 10 student news on my phone

we’ve sometimes done minecraft builds based on our current history chapter 

Dd has had various online animal encyclopedias and our museum has a natural history app for identifying weird bugs.

This is not quite homeschool but it’s related - we go to so many more places thanks to the maps app.  I am horrible at reading maps and driving difficult places but this has really given me the confidence to have a go.

[ScoutTN]

We used one for GSWL.