By the end of the school year I want all of my students to meet and/or exceed academic standards. My biggest challenge is having enough iPads to use on a day-to-day basis to help them grow to love learning with technology.
My students are kindergartners and they are between the ages of 5 and 6 years old.
Their minds are like sponges and they love it when I am able to incorporate technology into my lessons. A few days a week, students also learn Mandarin, which is also tied to the academic standards.
At the beginning of each year I work with students to design personalized, year-long goals that are are based on their academic performance, individual needs, and what they are passionate about. I love meeting with each student and learning what they are passionate about and what they want to get better at for the year. In the past, some students have been passionate about learning how to speak more Mandarin, get better at their soccer kick, and learn how to be a better reader. Being a teacher isn't just about academics, it's about teaching life-skills and helping them find their passions.
My Project
With the use of 4 iPads, I will be able to integrate more technology into the classroom across content areas, such as language arts, math, and science. There are so many great apps that I would like to use during small group lessons/activities. The students will learn to meet and exceed the math and language arts Common Core Standards for Kindergarten. Here are some ways I envision using the iPads every week:
- listening centers: students listen to audio books, which builds their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills.
- learning the alphabet and numbers through songs and games
- Math games: differentiated math game apps for students based on their individual needs
- Use for the daily morning message: Instead of using a whiteboard to write a new message every day, having students take turns editing the message using a stylus
- Skype and/FaceTime with different experts during our science units on the ocean and the rain forest
- learning sight words
These donations will improve my classroom because my grade level shares one laptop computer cart that is filled with 6-7 year old Macbooks and only half of the computers turn on and work.
It is difficult to have students do an activity using technology when most of the instructional time then turns into troubleshooting issues. Having technology that is new, easily portable to other classrooms, and is familiar to use for most young students would be a great addition for the classroom!
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