Literacy Fun With Ruckus Media Animated Apps

Ruckus Media has hit another home run with their early literacy apps: A Present for Milo and Andrew Answers. Both apps feature original stories that entertain while they educate.  Kids will be having too much fun to actually believe they are learning! Shhhh! It can be your secret!

 A Present for Milo features a cat-mouse chase that is ideal for both pre-readers and early readers.  Throughout the story, children are encouraged to tap on 80 different objects to uncover over 125 animations.  With every new screen, young learners are drawn into Milo's exciting world as their reading adventure turns into an interactive game.  Young readers will delight in this stimulating, high quality, animated app.

Andrew Answers takes the reader on a different type of interactive journey.  This hilarious app written by award-winning author, Alan Katz, entertains while developing literacy.  What a winning combination! This app is great for developing letter recognition and letter sounds, as well as, vocabulary. 

The Digital Age has revolutionized "story time" and early literacy.  As a teacher, homeschooler, and mom, I highly recommend these apps for your children or students.  Along with their classic story apps, Ruckus Media offers teachers and parents exciting opportunities to develop literacy.  This is a great way to integrate technology in the classroom or at home by providing a stimulating and meaningful learning experience.  

Take Home The Velveteen Rabbit This Holiday!

The Velveteen Rabbit is a classic children's tale about a boy and his beloved rabbit.  The team at Ruckus Media has recreated the magic in their adaptation for portable media devices.  With narration by Meryl Streep, illustrations by Dave Jorgensen, and music by George Winston, children of all ages will love to curl up with this tale during this holiday season.  For Thanksgiving Week only (Nov. 25th-Nov. 29th), Ruckus Media will be offering it FREE through Apple's iTunes App Store.

Ruckus Media is focused on bringing wholesome entertainment into the lives of families and classrooms.  This is a wonderful opportunity for teachers to explore the many ideas associated with this story.  I have included teaching suggestions to accompany a literature study of this timeless favorite.

• Vocabulary Study: While enjoying the story, explore the suggested vocabulary words and discuss their meanings.  Word Central is a great, online student dictionary.  Feel free to add to the Google Doc I have started.  That will be a fun learning experience itself!
• Wordle: Create a wordle of everyone's favorite stuffed animals.  You will quickly see the popular choices because their "names" will appear larger in the finished piece of art.
• Using Scriblink, record student responses to the question "What does it mean to be 'real'?"
• Math Connection: Poll students on their favorite stuffed animal.  Record your findings in a tally chart and have students create a bar chart of their results.  Create-a-Graph is a great online tool!
• Have students write a story about their favorite stuffed animal coming to life.  Use Google Docs to type their final draft.  If you are feeling adventurous, children could write a play based upon their favorite stuffed animal.  This would be a great way to surprise families at a school holiday party or during a family holiday gathering.
• The toys in The Velveteen Rabbit move, communicate, and have feelings.  Explore the idea of personification and how writers use this type of figurative language to enhance their writing.  Brainstorm other books, tv shows, or movies that use personification.  Post stickies on Wallwisher to record your findings.
• What is scarlet fever?  Explore this and other contagious diseases.  Use this as an opportunity to discuss ways to prevent spreading germs and other healthy habits.  Create a newsletter to send home to your parents to showcase your findings.  Again, Google Docs is a great tool!

As you can see, there are many exciting learning opportunities available to teachers.  I would love to hear further suggestions and will be happy to add them to this list.  Thank you Ruckus Media for providing this wonderful opportunity to families and classrooms as we all kick-off the holiday season.

Ruckus Media: Animated Literature Adventures

What do Robin Williams and Pecos Bill have in common- an exciting, animated adventure created by Ruckus Media. This dynamic team recently launched a series of animated apps focusing on classic literature and the tall tales of American folklore.  The first round includes: Tom Thumb,  Johnny Appleseed, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and The Velveteen Rabbit.  They have teamed up with celebrities including Meryl Streep, Robin Williams, John Cleese, Denzel Washington, and Garrison Keillor along with famous musicians to bring these stories to life.

With each adventure, the child chooses from three options.  First, they can watch the animation and hear the story read aloud by a famous actor.  This provides the child with a mobile story time they can take along any where.  For busy moms or dads who may not be able to make the Saturday morning story hour at the local bookstore or library, this is exciting news for you.  Next, the child may choose to read at their own pace.  With the swipe of their finger, children can flip through the pages and enjoy wonderfully illustrated classics.  Moms and dads can still enjoy hearing their child read aloud or snuggling up with the iPod or iPad and reading to them.  Finally, the child may choose to record their own voice and listen to themselves read aloud or listen to a recording of mom and dad reading to them.  As an educator, this option is exciting providing a great method for documenting a child's reading ability and fluency.  These apps can grow along with your children providing them a quality experience at each stage.

As a homeschooling mom, I always try out new apps on our children before recommending them to others. Our preschooler has actually requested to watch Johnny Appleseed many times as we drive to and from gymnastics and the soccer fields.  As a four year old, he can easily navigate through the options and choose the appropriate one for him.  Our second grader does not place reading at the top of her favorite list of activities.  She, however, loves The Velveteen Rabbit and "thinks it makes reading more fun and exciting."  Our third and fifth graders are currently obsessed with Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, however, they both thought the illustrations "were beautiful" and wished they had this option available for them a few years ago.

Some of the fondest memories of childhood involve my parents reading books to me.  I'll never forget when my dad brought home a copy of The Wizard of Oz.  I was so excited!  Like many things, though, the times are changing.  The Digital Age has revolutionized "story time" and the creative minds at Rukcus have tapped into this with their animated adventures.  They have found a way to make the stories accessible without sacrificing the quality of reading often provided by mom and dad.  As a teacher, homeschooler, and mom, I highly recommend these apps for your children or students.  They provide a quality learning experience while still maintaining the fun of playing on an iPod.  In fact, they may not even realize they are learning!

Get Moving with Motion Math

Motion Math is a revolutionary, movement-based learning app and winner of the Editor's Choice Award for Excellence in Design from Children's Technology Review.  All I can say is, WOW!  The first game in this series centers around fractions. The learner is asked to equate different representations of fractions by bouncing a sphere to the correct place on the number line.  In order to do this, you must actually tilt your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch in the direction where you desire the ball to go.  You must think quickly and accurately to obtain the best outcome!

This game was originally developed by the Stanford School of Education and embodies their research in the area of cognition.  Simply stated, they found that connecting a person's physical body to abstract concepts creates a more positive, successful learning outcome.  Motion Math allows the learner to interact with difficult concepts by connecting learning with game play. 

As a math educator, I know fractions are often a concept many students find difficult to grasp.  This app provides practice in making connections between different representations allowing the learner the opportunity to build a solid foundation.  I highly recommend this as a fun alternative to traditional math drills.  Our third grader said he "wished he could do this for math every day."  Our fifth grader agreed by saying she found the game "addicting" and an "fun way to improve her fraction skills."  Motion Math is an excellent way to integrate technology in the classroom or learning environment while giving students a meaningful, yet fun, math experience.

Math Girl Games- The Fun Keeps Adding Up!

Math Girl Games, created by Lynn and Molly Rasmussen, recently launched Addition House adding to their popular series aimed directly at young girls.  Addition House builds on the skills explored in Number Garden allowing girls to gain confidence in math.  The beauty of this app is that it syncs with Number Garden allowing you to view both your house and your garden. 

Continuing with the right-brain approach to learning, Addition House possesses all the things you love about Number Garden.  Through game play, girls count patterns of flowers to develop visual representations of basic addition skills.  Through this method of pattern recognition, they are able to quickly move away from counting individual items to counting groups of items laying a foundation for multiplication concepts.

If that's not enough, there are opportunities for the more advanced to challenge themselves in timed play and develop fluency of their basic facts.  With each success, the player is awarded virtual "money" in which they can go shopping and decorate their house.  What girl wouldn't love that!  The shopping experience actually serves as a surprise bonus.  As the child buys and sells items for their house, they develop money skills as well. 

As with all of the apps I review, they are field tested on our children, the gymnastics team, the soccer kids and the kids I tutor.  The overwhelming response was "This is fun! I wish I could do this for math homework."  Our second grader was quoted as saying it was "addicting."  Imagine that, being addicted to learning math!  That is every educators dream!  The team at Math Girl has found a winning combination by creating a platform where young girls can develop math skills using a visually interesting and engaging game. 

Check out this series for an exciting alternative to flash cards and the traditional "drill-n-kill" approach to learning.  This is an inexpensive way for young girls to gain confidence, develop fluency and see that math is fun!