Ice cream and iPad day

Sara ConnellCase study, Elementary / Primary, Math, Pre-K / Kindergarten

Things heat up as we approach the summer holidays – how about a lesson idea to cool everyone down? Mmm…

In our classroom, we have 12 iPads that we use daily. We love using Book Creator throughout the day. You will catch us using Book Creator in any subject area. We love taking pictures, finding pictures on the internet and drawing our own pictures to be inserted into the books that we create.

During our last 26 days of school, we had an ABC Countdown to Summer. For ‘Ii Day’ we did not do any worksheets. We used our iPads all day during our Math, Reading, Writing and Science blocks instead. Our theme of the day was “iPads and Ice Cream”.

The kids had so much fun using Book Creator to make their ice cream books and complete other ice cream activities.

Ice cream cone math

When I got to school I wondered if my iPads would be charged. I unlocked our cart to see that they were all plugged in. I have the BEST group of kindergarten students. They ask to put them away every night AND they plug them in for me!

iPad cart

We started the day by doing ice cream cone math. The kids walked around the room with their iPads and took pictures of math equations that were hanging in the room. The created a book in Book Creator with these pictures. They added the picture, wrote the equation and recorded their voice saying the equation.

Here’s the process:

1. I copied my equations onto colored paper and had my kids hang them all around the room.

Ice cream equations on the wall

2. We sat down together and I had them download the Ice Cream books from Google Drive.

I’d prepared by creating the title page of the books we would be making.

Downloading books from Google Drive

3. I used my iPad and projected what I was doing on the smart board so they could follow along easily.

Projecting Book Creator onto a smart board

Once they got to this step and I saw the book on their iPad, they were off. They took pictures of the equations that they found, wrote their equations and added their voice saying the problem.

Tip: Make sure you have an “non-digital” backup plan

We have a set of guidelines for the students for using iPads in the classroom. In the event that someone broke one of our iPad rules, I had some worksheets made up so that kids could still walk around and write down equations that they found. With our first iPad activity of the morning, I had a couple students that had to do this. They were not happy about it! I let them use the iPads again for later activities.

The Ice Cream flavors book in Book Creator

Ice cream flavors book

Our next activity was making an ice cream flavors book. The kids brainstormed all of the different kinds of ice cream that they could think of. They then added these pictures to their books in Book Creator. They recorded themselves reading the sentences that they came up with.

Below is a video of them making their books. I am really impressed with how fast they are getting at doing this. They are doing so well and have blown my mind with things that they are able to do with the iPads. We sat down today and learned how to make a video in iMovie. They helped pick out the slides, video and music to go with it.

And finally…

We ended our day by making ice cream!

Ingredients for making ice cream!

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