Drawing Carl

Talking Carl was the first app I had seen on an iPhone and after my friend showed it to me it started off a giggling domino effect. When I saw the drawing Carl app I wondered if it would compete with the other drawing apps available, but it was free at the time so I had nothing to lose. 

I think that this is a lovely app for EYFS and KS1, to prepare children for art apps like brushes. It has some nice features, as well as the ones that you would expect to find. What I really liked is the 'smoothness' in which you can draw. At £2.49 it's not one of the cheapest apps available, but it might just keep your little artists amused in the holidays!

There are a lot of options for wallpaper with different colours and styles.

Stamps are easy to use and easy to change colour.

If you are happy you can save and share your picture.

Creating a new colour is simple

and there are some nice effects that you can apply.

The part I like the best is the ability to add features to create your own talking monsters.

It giggles like Talking Carl and it is fun to experiment with the mouths. 

These features will keep children amused for hours! (Well a while any way)

Puppet Workshop

I love this app! It's perfect for creative little fingers - and leads nicely into early computing. You start with a choice of 4 socks that you can make into your puppet.

Once you have selected, you can start creating! 

The app is very easy to use and offers countless possibilities. There is a wide selection of buttons, strings, ribbons and other real life resources to choose from.

Some funky music plays in the background, which I quite enjoyed, but can be muted if you find it irritating. 

You can change backgrounds, then photograph your finished product. The only thing that would make this more perfect for me is if the app could simulate a hand inside for a bit of movement. I shall definitely be gifting this app for friend's children! 

Run Marco!

This is a nice little app that will help our young learners apply their computing skills. It is available for both ipad and android. At KS1 children will learn:

• that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions
• to create and debug simple programs
• use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs

and KS2:

• design, write and debug programs that accomplish specific goals, including controllingor simulating physical systems; solve problems by decomposing them into smaller parts
• use sequence, selection, and repetition in programs; work with variables and variousforms of input and output
• use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs

(Computing programs of study 2014)

There are 10 levels, with 10 more coming soon. 

It starts off with simple steps that are modelled for you, so you can't go wrong. 

It quickly moves on to the repeat command, so that our children can make links between this and the previous steps - and the reason for having a repeat command.

The next step is learning about variables in a very simple way. This again is modelled clearly for you. 

It encourages children to think about shortening their sequences and creating loops, thus making their algorithms more efficient. A great little app that is free too!

UR Brainy maths app

I have had a play with this app this weekend to review how good it will be for our ks1 learners - particularly a child on my class who needs resources to support with his independent learning.

There are four areas that you can explore that support basic number skills. If you get an answer wrong, the incorrect number becomes dull so that you don't press it again. There are 4 questions for each level. One thing that would make it easier for some children would be the option to hear each question. 

When you play the more/less activities, there is a nice model that allows children to count cows to find one more. Showing one less is not so obvious as it looks the same as below, but with the cow on the left faded for one less than 2. It might be clearer just to have a line through one. 

This will certainly be a useful app for our earlier learners. I will add the opinion of one of our little beta testers tomorrow! Thank you for the trial @urbrainy!

Light bot

Another computing post that has been a long time coming. Light bot is a great little program, available as an iPad/android app or on the web, that teaches early coding skills. Children can progress through levels, using symbols as the programming language. 

The aim is to light up all the blue squares. New symbols and challenges are quickly introduced.

The next challenge is to light more than one square, using up to 12 commands.

After this, you learn to write procedures that can be repeated.

The next step is to use loops. 

There are two iPad apps available, for ages 4-8 and 9-12, at £1.99 each. The latter introduces variables and although it doesn't allow children to explore programming creativity, it does get them to use logical thinking skills. A nice little app.

Perfect captions

A quick pointer to Perfect Captions - a nice little early writing app for KS1 and children with SEN. It does what it says on the tin - allows you to add captions and labels to photographs that you have taken. There are many others available, but this is one that I have used in class and the children have enjoyed using it. You can create albums and also share work through social networking. 

You can find more great educational iPad apps on my iPads in primary site.

My appshed app!

It's not amazing, but it's a start. I thought I would share my first app so that you can see what it looks like so far and maybe it will help you think about its potential. I am thinking of using it with my digital leaders in the first instance, so that they can create an app about themselves. I can also see how this can be used within my work in the cluster, to get boys writing. It will definitely compliment any inanimate Alice work.  

The appshed edit screen

Ipad view

Take a look at it!

If you haven't got a QR code reader, you can access the app here, though it does look different on a laptop/PC.

There are a few hitches that I need to look at more carefully - like losing some of the text on each side of the page. I'm sure it is easily rectified once I know how!

I would love to know what you think!