Day 1: Let’s Play

This is the second post in a series about launching the use of the app Book Creator in a kindergarten classroom.  You can read the first post about our planning here.

So there I was…standing in front of a group of small people, armpits sweating, my eye twitching.  Well, not really.  Because today I knew they would be great, today we were going to PLAY!  Plus, Laura my co-coach would be there to have my back.  (A luxury we usually can’t afford, but when working with Kindergarten special arrangements have to be made.)

Before the lesson we talked through what supports students would need to play.  As strange as that sounds sometimes kids need permission to just dig in and try things out.  So we created this chart to help us focus our lesson.

Chart creation is credited to Laura and her very neat handwriting.

For this lesson we brought all of the ipads to one room so students would have a 1:1 ratio for play.  We felt like this was important so that each child could develop a sense of independence with the tool.  (For all lessons to follow kids will be sharing iPads.)

After a very short lesson and some turn and talks we let kids get started and just play. Here’s what we noticed;

• About half of students in each class were able to get started right away.  The other half were hesitant at first but after some encouragement that they could do whatever they wanted they were able to get going.
• Many students went right for the draw function or taking photos and stayed with that one part of the app instead of exploring all of the different things they could do.  We addressed this through a mid-workshop teaching point and asking students to share things at their tables.  (mostly effective)
• Several students showed transfer of learning from Writers Workshop, including drawings, text, and photos on one page.
• One students asked permission to take another student’s photo and Laura stopped the class to have a great teachable moment about photography and respect.
• At the end of class we revealed our big project and let the kids know they would be authors and they were ecstatic!

This last part is where the real value is in my mind!  Real purpose, real audience, excited kiddos.  I can’t wait to see how this project unfolds.