Friday, October 5, 2012

Fall, Apps, and Halloween

Happy October!
It has been a great fall season for getting outside for Physical Education class! Thorson Elementary School has the BEST playground ever to use for Physical Education and recess. The Nature Center foliage is simply amazing at this time of year! I hope your family and you have had a chance to enjoy the great outdoors this fall!

(App)les for the Teacher :)
I am SO EXCITED to be using the new iPad I have for physical education. There are so many great educational apps that I have already been able to take advantage of, and students have already benefited from it as well.
Here are a few of my favorite apps so far that may be of interest to you as well:

  • CoachMyVideo- This app is great! It is my go-to tool for helping students visually see what their skills look like when they perform a task, and after giving them feedback and having them try again, I can share a side to side progression for them to see the positive changes they made. This has been very exciting to share with students! I also use CoachMyVideo to videotape students doing their skill assessments, and then take the time later to view it closer as I evaluate their skills. Very useful!!
  • Educreations- This app is similar to a whiteboard presentation, but has some cool features that have allowed me to drop in a picture of a soccer field this fall. We have used it to label the field markings, draw x's and o's in different colors to discuss offsides rules, and to explain how the ball is inbounded during various parts of a soccer game.
  • Keynote- This app is like powerpoint for the iPad. We planned our social contract while I typed in the  students' responses. I was able to print out the social contract for my classroom from this Keynote activity.
  • Heat Pad HD- No, this app is not meant to "warm up" your fingers when you type :), but rather it has some really cool color features that change colors to the pressure of your fingers as you move it along the screen. I use this app to motivate my special needs students after a great SDPE session. It is a GREAT app to help kids get excited about spelling out letters/words with their fingers. Very cool...check it out!

Have a Healthy Halloween!
I subscribe to a blog with SparkPE, and this month they have an awesome article I would like to share with you:

http://www.sparkpe.org/blog/happy-healthy-halloween/

Enjoy the rest of the fall season and get outside before the snow flies! :)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comment will be posted as soon as it is reviewed. Thanks for sharing!