Apple's education team today debuted 30 activities for kids and families to do as part of an ongoing effort to support at-home learning while many schoolchildren are completing classes remotely.
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Available as a PDF that can be downloaded or printed, the suggestions include a wide range of activities that can be done using the built-in features of an iPad or iPhone.
We know parents out there are juggling a lot in this challenging time. Apple’s education team has some fun ways to keep kids everywhere creating. #CreativityForKids https://t.co/hWIrWeSqGG — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 9, 2020
Some of the activities include capturing a time-lapse video, going on a photo walk, recording a news interview, personalizing a portrait, seeing color in slo-mo video, and emojifying a mood. The PDF features a different activity for each number, each of which can be clicked for an activity description. For the photo walk activity, for example:
Pick a color or letter of the day and take photos around the house and yard of things that are that color or start with that letter. Then put them together in a collage or video. Try to make a rainbow or complete the alphabet!
Get started: Add the photos of each color or letter to a slide in the Keynote app. Or add each photo to Clips and record your voice saying the colors or letters.
According to Apple, these activities are aimed at children from pre-kindergarten to second grade, but can be tailored to suit the whole family.
Apple has also been supporting at-home education with a series of remote learning videos that are designed to help schools and educators use the built-in features of their devices to enable remote learning.
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We don't all have that liberty.....I live in Spain and it's total lock-down. I am personally very lucky as I have a garden, and we own a dog, so we're allowed to take her out a couple of times for a short walk; But believe it or not, it's rained for about 80% of the time during this lock-down. (The irony of living in the Costa del Sol).1. Put down the damn iPad, go out and play.
However, many people don't have a garden and don't have a dog. You are NOT allowed to go out for random walks, and certainly not to play. If you get caught by the police, it's a heavy fine or worst still, arrest.
So activities like this, are excellent and help out parents.
Personally, I've used the excellent Lingokids app, (mods, I hope I'm able to put the link here: https://www.lingokids.com/), and we are lucky to also own a Marbotics number and letter set (https://www.marbotic.com/).
We also allow our 3-year old "down-time" by letting him watch YouTube Kids which I've heavily filtered, plus BBC Cbeebies has a huge number of awesome apps available based on his favourite TV programs.
However, the iPad isn't my boys only area. We've done a lot of painting, we've built the most insane Hotwheels tracks (I ordered a ton of track on Amazon), we built a teepee using some old fence posts, bed-sheets and Christmas lights, and this weekend we're going to be building him a red tractor out of a ton of cardboard boxes I've been saving up over the weeks. He gets to help build it, and paint it red. (His favourite colour).
I'm also going to try some activities suggested by Apple as they look pretty fun and cool to do.
I'm not sure if the negative comments come from members who are not parents or don't have very young children but both my wife and I work full time. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to be able to work from home (albeit it my wife's business has been shut down hopefully temporarily as it's a face to face business), but it still requires a lot of legal paperwork to manage and then restructuring for the weeks ahead.
During all this, we have to entertain, educate and manage the stresses of a 3-year-old child who wants nothing more than to play and have fun, and we've taken him away from his friends, his nursery that he loves and the outdoor adventures we do every weekend such as the zoo, beach combing, playing in the sand and more. It's all gone and has been for four weeks so far.
So for those to judge and point fingers at parents using iPads and other technology, and claiming "poor design", etc, etc....shame on you, get a grip and realise this is a tough time and parents have to manage somehow.
I consider our situation to be very good, but imagine if neither parent has a job, or worst still, both parents are front-line workers and still need to work yet still manage a child, have no garden or ability to go out.
You sit there in the comfort of your room, don your keyboard warrior hat and bang on about judging others.
Shame on you. I genuinely hope you stay safe, and I hope life doesn't get too tough on you through this terrible time.
ETA, thank you, Apple, for the activity sheet :)
We. Can’t. Do. That.1. Put down the damn iPad, go out and play.
How did you completely miss the entire point of this?
Instead of a photo of themselves, kids cold also use memojis of family members and make up a story or conversation about them.
Where would you like kids to play? Not everyone has a yard, parks and playgrounds are closed, and nobody should be near anybody else.1. Put down the damn iPad, go out and play.
Instead of being so judgmental, how about considering that what you are demanding just isn’t possible for everyone.
And? Times like this are likely stressful for some kids, especially those with special needs. There's nothing wrong with giving them something like this to take their mind off the current events and have something fun to do.No math/logical activities? Only photos, videos, emojis?