using technology in an early elementary
classroom is uniquely challenging since
students are still learning to read they
need instructions read aloud to them
since students don't know how to type
they need programs that will allow them
to draw or record an audio response
instead and of course students at that
age don't know how to use laptops yet
which is why lots of early education
classrooms opt for ipads instead and in
this video i'll be showing you seven of
the best ipad apps you can use in your
early education classroom and best of
all they're all totally free
hey everyone this is sam carrey with new
edtech classroom and on this channel we
show you everything you need to know
about teaching with technology the first
app we're going to take a look at here
is seesaw i'm starting with seesaw
because seesaw is not just an app that's
great for early elementary school
activities it's also an app that you can
use as a learning management system to
be able to organize different materials
for students and even communicate with
parents you can see up here on the top
left hand side that i have lots of
classes already created and when i
select one and then select to add
students you'll see that i'm prompted to
add my students names and then when i do
it generates a qr code or just a
numerical code that i can share with
students and this will allow them to
sign in without using an email address
after you've added your students click
on the green add button click assign
activity and that's going to take you
over to a portal where you'll be able to
access a bunch of pre-created
assignments i'll click on the community
tab here and then check out these
drop-down menus here you'll see that i
can select from some different grade
levels as well as different subject
areas so i'll go ahead and choose math
here then if i wanted to look for a
particular activity like say something
like edition i could search in the
search box or i could just scroll around
and see what comes up so here for
example if i choose this fill the ten
frame activity i can see the template
that a teacher already created i can
check it out by clicking on it and i can
also see the instructions that the
teacher already wrote as well as the
audio based instructions that students
could listen to if i want to assign this
i'm just going to click assign and then
that will assign it to my whole class
and now i can view this activity and
actually check it out so let's take a
quick look at what this would look like
from the student end here just so we can
see all the different interactive tools
that students can use so seesaw is
really optimized for early education
because it has these drawing tools and
also the ability for students to add
audio and even images and video to an
assignment so for this particular
activity if a student toggles the
instructions on they can see that they
are supposed to use the drawing tool and
then they're going to be marking the
number
that is reflected in each of the frames
so what they're going to do is select
one of the drawing tools they can choose
a different color here and then they
would just mark with their finger
five
marks
to represent the number five they click
the green check mark to submit the
assignment and then back on the teacher
side when i click on the assignment i
can see all the work that my students
have already completed i can click on my
sample student here and that's going to
pull up the assignment that we just did
and as a teacher i also have the ability
to give my students feedback and here
you can see that i can also record an
audio response if my students don't yet
know how to read now the next app that i
want to show you here is khan academy
kids khan academy kids is similar to
seesaw in that teachers can also create
accounts and then create assignments for
students from that account so here after
i've signed into my account as the
teacher i can see that i have an area
where i can create assignments and what
i can do is just search from some of
these different activities at the top so
you'll see that there are some different
phonics practice activities there are
some foundational reading skills
activities math activities as well as
these logic activities which are working
memory pattern recognition type
activities so if we hop back over here
to one of these letter activities and
click on lowercase a
here i can preview the activity before
assigning it to students these
activities will start with an
introductory video that's going to
explain a concept to students so here
students are learning about the letter a
and the sound that it makes and then
they're given instructions to drag and
drop the letter that corresponds to the
sound so here the student would just
drag the letter a
into the jar and then when they're done
they're going to click on the green
check and that's going to take them over
to another activity now in addition to
these activities there are also books in
khan academy kids so for example if you
were to click on a book you could turn
this into an assignment as well so i'll
click preview here and then i'll be
given an option to have the book read
aloud to me or to read it myself so i'm
going to click read to me here and we
can see what this read aloud is going to
look like the moon is the largest and
brightest
object in the night sky
in addition to books there's also videos
here on various topics and also some
instructional videos that you could
assign to your students as well another
great free app for early elementary
students is epic which like khan academy
also has a large archive of books and
videos that you can assign to students
epic will allow you to create a teacher
account and then create assignments for
students when you go to the search tab
you can search for different books based
on topics so for example if you know
that students like animals you might
select pets and then from there you can
also search for books based on different
age ranges so here i could select five
for example show results and i could
also search for books based on reading
level if i wanted to so let's click on
this book here penny hen so that we can
see what it looks like so here i can
start to scroll through it and similar
to khan academy kids you'll see that
it's going to read this book aloud to
students as well
penny hen can fix her nest and like khan
academy there's also lots of videos here
that you could assign to students so
let's say you just had a student read a
book in either khan academy or epic and
you want to have them process what
they've just learned you can use this
other free app tunetastic as a way for
students to create their own stories
that follow a plot diagram so tunetastic
allows students to select from some
templates with pre-created plot lines so
here for example we can see that this
template is just going to have a
beginning middle and end and then the
student would click on one of the
different parts of the plot line here
and start to build their story students
can choose from any of these pre-created
settings or they can draw their own so
let's just say for example that we want
to choose this one for atlantis then
students can also bring in these
different characters just by dragging
and dropping these characters are also
editable so if they wanted to change the
appearance of the character they could
do that here as well to add another
character the student would just click
on another one and they could also
choose to just draw their own here as
well and then once they're ready they
will be brought into this scene creator
so students will just drag the
characters to where they want them to
start click on the green start button
here and then it's going to record their
audio through the ipad so i could create
a scene hello nice to meet you hello i'm
an explorer and i'm looking for the lost
city of atlantis velocity of atlantis
well here it is you're literally in the
middle of it what i can't believe it
okay so then they hit the stop button
and then it's going to actually play
that recording back for them they can
choose some background music so for
example proud here and then they can
preview the story here by clicking on
the finish button hello i'm an explorer
and i'm looking for the lost city of
atlantis the next app that i'm going to
show you here is scratch junior scratch
jr is the younger kids version of
scratch which is a drag and drop coding
program and it's a really great app for
starting to introduce computational
thinking to younger students so you'll
see here on the scratch interface that
if a student clicks on the question mark
they can play this quick introductory
video to introduce them to the basics of
how they would be creating their code in
scratch and then they can also look at
these different sample projects
and then they'll be able to see how that
code was created so the way scratch
works is that you click on the flag and
then the animation is going to run
based on the code that was created below
so this would be a way for students to
be able to see a finished product and
then be able to model their own code
after something like that when a student
is ready to create their own project
they would just go here to the new
project button and then students will
just be able to drag and drop these
different coding blocks down below and
they can change the duration
for these different actions
and things like that now i actually
recently learned how to do scratch
coding myself because i ran a volunteer
after school girls who code club and
what i would recommend doing is rather
than just kind of starting from this
totally blank slate you can start with
one of the sample projects
even have this projected up for students
to be able to see
and then have students recreate a
project like this and manipulate some of
the different pieces in here so
they could change just the time duration
for one of the different coding blocks
and that's going to help them get a
better understanding of how all of it
works but you'll also be surprised at
how quickly many of your students pick
this up with actually very little
instruction on your part the next app
that i'm going to show you is one of
pbs's free ipad apps and this is pbs
kids games now pbs also has a videos app
if you're interested in checking out
that too you can see that these games
are kind of random they're not so much
attached to specific academic skills and
that's why i say that it would probably
be most effective to use as a brain
break or a reward let's check out space
bop here you'll see that each of the
game starts with a short video
introduction and then afterwards they'll
do some sort of drag and drop activity
to actually play the game the last stop
i'm going to show you here is breathe
think do by sesame street and this app
would also be an effective one to use
for a brain break or if you have
something like a piece corner or a calm
down corner in your classroom or if
you're working with students on
developing some social emotional skills
particularly around how to calm down so
this app shows different characters
experiencing frustration and then the
students are going to actually help the
character calm down by doing different
breathing activities so for example in
this activity the students would be
helping this character take deep belly
breaths as a way to practice calming
down in this other activity students are
popping the bubbles to help give the
monster advice about how to put on their
shoes these seven free ipad apps should
cover pretty much all the bases for your
early education classroom and if you're
interested in exploring more about all
the different ways that you can use
seesaw in your elementary school
classroom then be sure to check out that
video above