Do you have a child or work with students in middle school? This app/book Middle School Confidential by Electric Eggplant for $2.99 is different because it is comic like book discussing topics that middle school students deal with. The book has 8 chapters from Do you Like the Way you Look?, Sometimes I Worry What Other People Think, Sometimes I just Lose it, Meet the Opinionator , Fact Finder, I Don’t Get it, I’m Stressed Out, and I Like Who I Am.
If you are a school Psychologist or School Counselor this is a great app to add to a group as it covers the topics all middle school children struggle with. The use of a comic book is very familiar to young teens also making the book very enticing to read. The book has a built in cast of characters that students become familiar with. It is a great way for students to identify with characters and root for different characters that resonate with themselves.
Students can brainstorm after chapters are read about the different situations. They can discuss how they would feel if they were in the same place. It is also a perfect book to role over into video modeling and video tape the students in similar situations. As everyone knows the middle school years are the most difficult. Here is one way to help students deal with some of the more confusing issues in a format that is not threatening and whether you are a child with special needs or not this app is for all children to learn about tolerance.
This is a great app for teachers, Psychologists and parents!
Do you have a student or a child who is Dysgraphic or has difficulty with fine motor skills? Dexteria- Fine Motor Skill Development by BinaryLabs, Inc, for $3.99 is an inclusive app that will help students with hand and finger activities to improve their fine motor development. The app is not a game but has game-like features to keep students involved.
The app now includes multi users and data tracking for an additional $3.99. If you are an Occupational Therapist this is a great addition to the other activities you use while being able to send reports to parents or keep in a data folio. If you are a single user you still get a report upon completion of the daily activity. This app does not have settings. Instead it has options. These include restoring to default settings and providing feedback.
The first activity is Tap it. The goal of this activity is to develop isolation of finger movements, helps to sequencing and motor planning skills, facilitates tactile desensitization and improves attending skills.
The next activity is Pinch It. This activity helps students with fine motor manipulation needed to pick up objects and holding a pencil. The goal of this activity is to enhance thumb and pointer finger fine motor manipulation.
Finally, the last activity is Write It. This activity assists students in prewriting skills with both upper, lower case letters and numbers The goal is to trace the letters from the correct start point to the end point following the arrow to the balls within the letter.
This app used a few times a week for short periods of time will help students increase their ability to strengthen their fine motor skills. Personally, when tracing I give students a stylus to help the transition from iPad to paper. The stylus will also help the student learn the appropriate pencil holding skills.
Two styluses that I recommend for younger children are the Cosmonaut for $25.00 and the Alupen $24.95. They are both thick and easy to hold onto.