Penguin Fun on the iPads

This week during literacy I have been teaching my students about different thinking strategies while reading.  I began the week doing a lesson on background knowledge.  I decided to model the strategy using a non fiction book about penguins.  I continued the lesson today, using the same book, focusing on "how to spot new learning" when you are reading.  I modeled this strategy by reading one page at a time and the kids and I would turn a flashlight on each time we learned something new.  There was a lot of lights flashing and the kids loved the activity!  After we got the hang of it I handed out the iPads and we used a "new to us" app called iBrainstorm.  This app looks like a cork board and students are able to place sticky notes onto the board.  When you are finished you can save it to the camera roll and upload it to you blog.  My student's favourite question these days is, "Can I embed it onto my blog?" so I have to be very careful not to disappoint them!  Here are a few examples of their blog posts using iBrainstorm:

If you would like to see other examples or would like to comment on any of my students' blogs (which they would be thrilled about) please click here.
Later in the day we did some penguin art.  I am telling you this because I was amazed at what some of my students did when they had completed their work.  I had a few students ask me if they could go on their blogs while the rest of the class finished their art, and of course I said, "Yes!"  I didn't notice what they were doing on their blogs until I got home this evening and looked over their blogs.  Some of my students had taken pictures of their art project, opened it in Skitch, labelled the picture and uploaded it to their blogs!  I am so thrilled with how my class is taking charge of their learning and thinking outside of the box.  Here is one of the blog posts I am talking about:

I had to add the bottom comment to the picture because less than 2 hours later, she already had a comment from another primary student from British Columbia that wants to know how she did that.  I can't wait for her to respond and hopefully Jaiden from B.C. will learn something new and want to try out the app Skitch if he/she hasn't already!