iPad Proves Productive for Math Tutoring

I tutor a first grader in math twice a week. This week I saw her Tuesday afternoon and this afternoon. Since Dr. Crawford let us take the iPads home I decided to use some of the applications under the math heading during our tutoring sessions. The student I work with has a hard time counting up to numbers past 200 and in the Ames district, first graders must count up to 500 forwards and backwards by 1's and 10s. They must also count by 2's to 100 and by 5's to 200. I used the app Drawing Pad to have my student write her numbers 1-500 counting by 10's. She really enjoyed changing the backgrounds and the types of writing utincles when she was getting a little tired of writing numbers. She picked up on how to erase the board, how to get to the main menu and how to use the undo button quickly! I know that her class doesn't use an iPad so this was a new experience for her and I wasn't sure how fast she would pick up on the technology. I was pleasantly surprised with how fast she picked up on it though!

Another skill my student has to work on is solving addition and subtraction facts quickly. I think we probably all remember doing the timed tests where we tried to complete as many problems as we could in a minute. In order to have the student practice this skill I used the app called Math Drills Lite. The settings in this app provides a lot of scaffolding for students. There is the option to have a number line at the bottom of the screen and the option for hints to pop up after a certain number of seconds. You can also change the difficulty of the problems by allowing only certain combinations of numbers to be shown. The app does drills in sets of 10 so students don't get too worn out. I really enjoyed using this app with my student because we have been practicing the fast facts for weeks now and it was refreshing, for me and her, to use a medium other than paper and pencil!

Lastly, we explored some of the other math apps on the iPad that didn't necessarily have to do with what her class is working on but that helped her stretch her thinking. We did used the app Butterfly Brunch which had her work on moving a butterfly on a coordinate plane when given a coordinate. When we first started I had her go back to the coordinate (0,0) before finding the next coordinate. By the time she did five coordinates my student was able to figure out where the coordinates were from any point on the plane (this is a great skill for her to learn so young!). We also used the app Slice It! which has you slice shapes into equal parts. The app specifies how many slices you need to make and how many pieces you need to end up with, then once you cut the shape it shows you what percentage each piece is of the whole. It starts out pretty easy but gets very challenging. Towards the 11th stage my student started asking me if I could do it and when I tried I had a hard time too! It was fun and challenging for us both!

I have had a great time using the iPad during the last couple of days and can still see many possibilities to use it in the classroom.