iLiveMath Farm Fresh is an app intended for Kindergarten to Grade 6. It's a great find for me this year, as the Grade 3 Social Studies program includes a look at Urban and Rural Communities, and in Science we’re investigating Plant Growth! How convenient, then, to have a series of counting activities and basic math problems to remediate the skills of those students who need it, while also visually consolidating some of the new vocabulary we’ve been discussing in Social Studies and Science?!
The Farm Fresh app includes a section that is entirely based on the story, “Stone Soup” (great Literacy link!) As an added bonus, each question includes a small TV screen which -- when clicked on -- shows a short video clip about farming or growing various plants!
One thing I really like about this app is the built-in differentiation: I can talk up the app as a center, and then when students go to work at the iPad, they can choose (or I can choose for them if needed), Level 1, 2 or 3, depending on their specific needs and abilities.
The whole iLive Math series, and especially the Farm Fresh app is ideal for English Language Learners because of the rich visuals. The bright colours and real-life photos really enhance the learning provide opportunities for vocabulary enrichment. Even without the math part of the app, I could see myself plopping one of the problems down in the middle of a chart paper, and doing a sort of modified PWIM, having a group of students write down (or me scribing for them) all the different colours, objects, etc. that they see in the picture, and then writing a sentence about it.
I’m pretty excited to have found this series of apps, and I am looking forward to using them both in my classroom, and next year, when I am homeschooling and doing some school-based volunteer work in Argentina!