Teach Your Monster to Read App - FREE this week!

The wait is over! Teach Your Monster to Read is free to download across all app stores this week!

From today (Monday March 4th) to Sunday March 10th, you can download the app completely free.

Once downloaded, there is no subscription cost or in-app purchase after the free download period ends.

Are you ready to go on an adventure? Three, two, one... let's go!

• apple.co/2s8oX0b  (iPad & iPhone)
• http://bit.ly/2cohkeR  (Android)
• http://amzn.to/2lNa0xS  (Kindle Fire)

 K-2 BPS teachers, submit a help ticket to have this app installed on your classroom iPads!

Participate Collections

I have curated tons of Collections on the Participate site to help teachers find good iPad apps and other resources for specific tasks. You can see all of the Collections I have created at bit.ly/PiltzCollections. They are a work in progress, continuously updated as I discover more great tools!

Technology for Little Learners

Allowing our youngest learners access to technology is so important in today's classrooms. These students are digital natives, and many are using tablets and other devices each day in their homes. Teaching them how to use these devices as tools to create, make and do (rather than just play and watch) can be important part of their day. I loved providing my kindergartners with access to iPads as a way to document their learning, take pictures of their creations, and share their voices as they told me stories or read books aloud. Publishing this work to an authentic audience and sharing with parents was a beloved and essential part of our routine in kindergarten.

Teachers often ask me what some of my favorite apps to use with young learners (K-2) are. Here is a list of my Top 5 Favorites. You can see a more extensive list in this Participate Learning Collection.

Seesaw

This digital learning journal has embedded tools and allows students to publish both digital and physical work to an authentic audience. I love that parents can connect and see their students' work. Projects that students make in all of the other apps below can be published to Seesaw and shared with classmates and parents. FREE!

Classkick

Classkick allows teachers to create assignments, then watch students complete the assignments and give feedback in REAL TIME. This is awesome! Easy to create assignments from scratch or from PDF files teachers already have, as well as provide differentiated work to students. FREE!

 

Book Creator

One of the first apps I started using with my kindergartners is still one of my favorites. Can be used across all subject areas and grade levels. Allows students to create their own books including text, voice, images, drawings and other embedded items, plus publish to an audience. $4.99 (WORTH IT!)

PicCollage Edu

This kids version of PicCollage allows students to create collages using text, drawing, photos, and web search. Students use their creativity to share what they know. $1.99

Apple Clips

Students are able to make videos to share their learning using easy-to-use video editing tools, voice text, stickers, posters and music. Excellent for how-to videos or to publish research. FREE

Coding Resources for K-2 Students & Teachers

FREE Math Apps for BPS Teachers!

Deana Elder just purchased many licenses for these awesome math apps gone free. If any Billings Schools teachers would like these apps installed on their iPads, they just need to complete a Help Ticket!

SmartCards+ Flashcards System

Math Rescue Games For Rounding

Animal Math First Grade Games

Also, don't forget the growing collection of Math Apps in my Participate Collection!

Ten Frame Mania App FREE on the App Store

Check out this great FREE app from Greg Tang, author of The Grapes of Math. Ten Frame Mania is the latest Greg Tang Math game! Play it to learn and exercise your number sense. It helps you understand the cardinality of numbers, how to play with them, and how the different numbers work together. It’s concept is so simple, yet addictive and fun!

SmarTap App

See, Learn and Talk is a unique application to facilitate speech and language development in young children. An experienced and certified Speech-Language Pathologist who has been working with children for 20 years has designed this application in order to provide concrete support for language development to parents, fellow speech and language therapists, ABA therapists, educators and Teachers of Speech and Language Disabilities. Billings teachers, submit a help ticket to have this app installed on your iPads for FREE!

Draw & Tell Fun

The FREE app Draw & Tell is an absolute favorite for letting students tell stories and explain things they know in a fun, engaging and creative way. Students are able to use stickers, drawing, voice and even add their own photo as a background. I love the moveable stickers for telling math stories or making characters move. The images or videos easily save to Seesaw to share with others. Check out some of these fun creations from Mrs. Parisien's first graders, who just learned Draw & Tell today!

After using Draw & Tell, your students may also be interested in the Duck Duck Moose apps Princess FairyTale Maker and Superhero Comic Book Maker. BOTH FREE!

FREE Math Apps from PBS

Check out this great collection of FREE math apps for young learners! Variety of apps to help students practice number sense, greater than, less than, equal parts, measurement, and much more!

Weekly Tech-y News December 11-15th

Click the image to download a PDF.

Christmas Tree Apps

There are several fun, free Christmas tree apps for your iPad that allow students to be creative and decorate their own Christmas trees. Use these apps for math problems: Have them create arrays or simple equations on the trees using the ornaments, then put into Seesaw or another app to annotate, solve and explain their thinking. You could also have them create illustrations for stories and upload to apps such as Seesaw, Shadow Puppet Edu, or Book Creator, where they can add text and voice.

Weekly Tech-y News: Hour of Code Edition

Click the image to download a PDF.

Apps for Guided Reading

Great iPad Apps for K-2 Centers!

Apps Recommended for 2nd Grade by BPS Teachers

Teach Your Monster to Read

Teach Your Monster to Read is a wonderful, engaging program that motivates children to learn the basics of reading. It features a variety of levels for pre-K and kindergarten students, and would be helpful for beginning of year 1st graders and struggling readers as a "boost". Continue reading to see how to use this tool in your classroom.

Create a teacher account for FREE online at Teach Your Monster to Read. You can add your students - it will create a star code and password for each student. You can also set which level you want each student to begin at. Click here to view the game levels. They will need this information to login to your class account.

The online version is FREE, and students can access it from computers or Chromebooks. The iPad app is $4.99, but Billings Public Schools teachers are super lucky, as the app went free for a short amount of time last spring and the amazing Deana Elder bought licenses for BPS teachers to use in their classrooms. So if you'd like this app added to your classroom iPads, please submit a Help Desk Ticket and let the techs know which iPads you would like it installed on.

When you open the app, you will have the option of enabling school mode. Follow the on screen instructions to enable this, and enter the star code for your class (you will see this information in your teacher dashboard after adding players to your class).

Enabling the school mode will automatically direct your students to the login page. Each student will need to login using their name and password. There are login cards available to download and print from your teacher dashboard. You can't customize their password, so they will need to copy and eventually memorize the password.

This program, sponsored by Usborne Books, is an engaging way for students to practice early literacy skills. The students absolutely love it!