Letters & Shapes for Spring Break!

Radford's on Spring Break? Oh.. I wouldn't know since I follow the elementary school calendar which entails a 4-day weekend in April as my "Spring Break" instead of this luxurious week. :)  As I move into full time teaching I am finding it is harder to provide the students with more iPod time. I've continued to incorporate it into our daily "rest" time but that is the only time I can fit it in. 

The majority of my kindergartener's continue to practice letter formation and recognition using the Letter Tracer app and their "rest" notebooks. There are several component I do not like about Letter Tracer for students who are struggling. It does not follow Zaner-Bloser handwriting which is confusing when the students arrive at an uppercase I or a lowercase q. Also the students are expected to trace the space in a bubble letter and I am watching most of the students wanting to color in the whole letter defeating the whole purpose of feeling the formation of the letter. 

Capital I or lowercase l?

lowercase q, backwards p, or a number 9?

After more research, I found the ABC Tracing app ($0.99) which is extremely ideal for my children who are struggling with letter recognition, letter name, and letter formation. ABC Tracing follows the Zaner-Bloser Manuscript, the letters appears on lines, both upper and lower case, and are "dotted" for easy tracing, plus a picture is provided with every letter, great way for a quick and easy assessment tool as I walk around during rest time.  

Great example of an uppercase I

No more, "Ms. Kelly what's this letter?" :) 

We began a mathematics unit on shapes this week: comparing and contrasting squares and rectangles, triangles and right triangles, and circles and ovals. I found an app called Shapes by Toddler Teasers, that has been working well with the students. Students are asked to identify the shape requested. What I like most, is that not only is the "voice" saying square, but it's also written on the screen to reinforce that vocabulary recognition, as well as providing the shape, along with several others to choose from. After 3-4 questions students can choose a sticker to place on a picnic picture. My goal is to implement the Shapes app as a math center next week when I have all the ipods loaded with the app!