Great topic! I've been trying to come up with a lesson plan for our app, Jumbline 2. Jumbline is an anagram word-puzzle game. The goal of the game is to and rearrange a group of jumbled letters into words. When you make a word, underline it with your finger to score points. The puzzles are offered in five, six, and seven letter word puzzles. Solve the largest word in the puzzle and you can advance to the next level.
The Jumbline 2 lesson plan
Ideally, you would be able to project the images from the iPad onto a projector screen or TV, but if that's not possible, have the kids gather around you, while you hold the iPad facing out towards them.
1. Start a new game by selecting the Classic mode. Then select the "untimed" mode and the size of the word puzzle. A five letter word puzzle would probably be a good start for this age group.
2. The five-letter word will appear scrambled on the screen. When a student thinks they see the five-letter word, or any other words in the puzzle, have them raise their hand.
3. When you call on a student, have them come up to the iPad and spell out the word. There are two ways this can be done, the first, as mentioned before, is to use your finger to arrange the letters. But for this lesson, have the student touch the first letter of the word and say it out loud. For example, if the letters on the board are EVWAE, and the student intends to spell WAVE, have them touch the W, then the A… This will cause the letters to drop down below the row of jumbled letters. When the word is complete, the student presses the check icon, just above and to the right side of the letters and then spells and says the word out loud. If the word is spelled correctly, the word will ascend to one of the spaces in the upper left hand corner of the screen and points will be awarded. If it is spelled incorrectly, the word will bounce up and down a few times.
4. Jumbline shows the exact number of words that can be spelled out each word puzzle. The round will end when all the words are found. At that point, you can touch any of the words to see the definition of the word.
I think this would be a really interesting way to come up with a list of spelling and vocabulary words for the students. Instead of picking out lists for your students, play Jumbline for 30 minutes on a Monday morning and pick your vocabulary and spelling words from the words the students spelled in the game.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jumbline-2-free-for-ipad/id374370928?mt=8Here's a link to the free version in the iTunes store. If you'd be willing to try out the lesson plan, and let me know how it goes, I could get you a promo code.
Let me know what you think!
Thanks,
Daniel Savickas
Brainium Studios
