Toontastic :)

Had two of my four Parent/Teacher conferences today.  The first one went well, as expected, but the second went BETTER than expected (which is great, because I already expected it to go well ;)).  My head wasn't really in the rest of my work today because of being so sick lately, so I'm glad things turned out so well.

During M's Conference I did my usual checklist, talking about his strengths, giving progress reports on his IEP goals, and talking about what we are working to improve.  I saved the best for last :)  I have an app for the iPads that I got for the classroom called Toontastic.  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toontastic/id404693282?mt=8  The boys absolutely LOVE it!  They "tell" the story and the iPad records their voice, it walks them through the steps of creating a story, and they get to pick and manipulate the cute little toon characters while they record their story.  M really struggles with writing because of the language barrier (his family is from another country) but wrote a really funny, entertaining story about pirates (with a lot of coaching from me ;)) and I showed it to his dad and our speech therapist at the end of his Conference.  M even changed his voice to sound a little gruff for the Pirate Captain ;) His dad and the speech therapist were just CRACKING UP and they were super amazed at how well his story turned out!  It really made my day.

Today, I was Specially Educated because I finally saw the fruits of my labor in writing these grants, going to trainings, and introducing a new medium of teaching to my boys.  Totally worth all of the work!!