Cinnamon's Synonyms: September 2014

My friends over at the Lesson Deli and I are throwing an AMAZING GIVEAWAY!! We have each blogged about our fav iPad apps... and... get this... we are giving away an iPad Mini! Woo hooo! This is SO EXCITING!!

But first, let me tell you a bit about an app that gets A LOT of use in my classroom: Pic Collage.

Kids love taking pictures and turning them into collages, am I right? Sooo, why not take that love and link it with some learning?! That's what we do over in room 222... and let me tell you... it takes engagement to a WHOLE new level.

I have used Pic Collage in a dozen ways with my students... and funnily enough I have never actually used it for creating collages. Ha!

The layout options offered in this app make it really easy to get kids creating various media texts such as brochures, fliers, menus, posters, comics... and more. This is what I love most about the app...its versatility. I'm sure the app creator just wanted to give kids a fun way to design collages, but if you think outside the box, you can easily adapt this app to teach just about any subject! Another great feature? It's super easy to use, making it great for kiddos in ANY grade!

For this post, I will focus on how I use Pic Collage to teach procedural writing. Using this app to teach procedural writing was inspired by a student I had last year who absolutely HATED writing, BUT LOVED creating paper airplanes (and boy was he good at it!). Sooo... I thought... hmm... maybe I could get my kiddos to write a procedure on something they were passionate about and that they were an expert at (like building paper airplanes). I wanted an app that was easy to use and would keep my students engaged. The results were amazing! My class was focused and having fun while writing! They especially enjoyed taking pictures of all the steps in their procedure!

Here's how it works:

My students enjoyed bringing in their materials and taking pictures for their procedure, however, in some cases it was difficult for students to bring in certain objects (either because they were too big, valuable or fragile). In this case, using pictures from the web made it feasible for students to write about ANY topic they were passionate about!

I whipped up a quick example to show you how easy it is to use this app. Here's my procedure on "How to Bake a Cake".

Notice the search bar. Just type in what you need an image for, and voila, you have loads of images to choose from! Alternatively, you can take your own pictures and easily select images from the camera roll.

If you make a mistake, its easy to drag and drop the images right where you need them. You can change the layout mid-way if you realize that you need to add more steps or that you prefer another layout.

Once the images are in place, students can type in their procedure!

They can play around with the style, size and color of the fonts!

To teach your students about all the functions in the app, have them click on the question mark at the top. This is what will pop up:

NOW for your chance to WIN AN iPAD mini!!!
This giveaway is only open to teachers (classroom and homeschool) who are living in the United States or Canada. The winning entry will be verified and proof of eligibility may be required.

Contest starts September 26th and ends September 29th.