KristinHarrisDesign.com
I am back in the house, that is the Yellow House at Elizabeth's Early Learning Center. I had been visiting my three year old friends at this day care center for a number of years when my schedule last year made it difficult to get there. I'm back and boy am I thrilled about it.
What's so wonderful about this experience?
It's always fun to spend time with individuals who are happy, friendly and into what's happening right now, whether they are three or fifty.
I am so respectful of their intelligence. These kids are curious and smart. As a general rule they are pretty fearless, certainly about making mistakes. They spend quite of bit of their day learning by making mistakes. (I do too.) This comes quite naturally.
I love sharing information and helping others build skill sets. That is what education is all about and interactive experiences can be a great way to explore information.
What are we doing?
I come in after nap time for their afternoon hour of free play. That way kids can self-select if they want to spend time with me. I bring a book (sometimes) and an iPad (always). We have worked out a protocol over the many visits. There is a small table in a corner of the room with four chairs, away from the din of their classmates in free play. I have found that three kids at a time is the best number for these experiences...for all of us. They all get plenty of access to the iPad while reinforcing the dreaded concept of sharing. The classroom has a big timer. So I ask the kids to set the timer to 15 minutes. That way we get a good session and I can work with three sets of kids in the hour. Over the many visits, this has proven successful.
This is a very hands on experience for me. I am very present in the experience. I am not handing the iPad off the them to see what happens. If there is narration, I turn it off and read to them. I want this to be a kid/adult experience. I suspect they get access to digital devices without direct supervision on their own.
This week I brought a book too. I have a collection of paper engineered books. Even the little kids do well with these with lots of supervision. I value my books and I know how easily they can be damaged. The book I brought this week was One Red Dot by David A. Carter. It's a real paper book and delightfully interactive, a good seguey to the iPad.
Why am I there?
I will be the first to admit, besides loving to spend time with young children, I am doing a lot of research for my own app development during these visits. Of course I am not only sharing my apps with them. I review apps and research others so I have a large collection of preschool apps on my iPads.
On these most recent visits, it has been very gratifying to have a favorite of the children's be my app ABC.DC:An Art Alphabet. This is always a good ice breaker because I am just learning the names of this new class. The kids are asked to select their favorite letter, which is very regularly the first letter of their name.
They are then taken to a page that is illustrated with an image from the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (hence the name). These pages are interactive with the artwork animated in some way. The letter A was particularly popular yesterday. This is what it looks like when the apron is tapped..it dances through a series of colorful images over the apron. There is narration for the text.
Letter I for ibis was also a popular destination. It's always really fun for me to see this get the kids squirming around mimicking the dancing when they keep repeating this short animation.
The letter J.
Great sound effects
I am constantly reminded about what gets and keeps there attention, important factors in designing an app that can be an effect tool in preschool learning. I can forget how important audio can be to a successful interactive experience for young children. That's one reason AlphaBelch has been such a hit.
Another wacky favorite is The Grumps Beard of Bees. This one is particularly fun because all of us can join in simultaneously. The idea here is to drag the bees onto Mr. Grumps face as fast as you can (there is a timer) and fill it up with bees to make a beard. Huh?? It is fun and the kids really like it. Maybe this is a lesson about how the most outrageous things can be a hit? The artwork is wonderful too, look at that hair and splattered background.
Take Away? Why not!
So my take away from all this is...I want more. More of the kids having fun and learning to navigate a digital future that we can only dare to imagine as well as learning real world skills that will help them in school, like the alphabet, etc.
What do you do when you play iPad with three year olds?
thanks Kristin you have some great recommendation for kids there
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