A Fun App for an APPY New Year! Where’s My Water?
After a busy couple of weeks readjusting to the school routine and working on winter and penguins with my students, I've been trying some new apps on my iPad.
I stumbled upon "Where's My Water" through my children and have become quite addicted! I have been able to integrate it into therapy and make it apply to language goals and objectives.
"Where's My Water" is an app created by Disney, featuring an alligator who lives in the sewers of a building, and needs water in his bathtub. There are many levels you can get for free, in which the player must figure out how to get water from various pipes or puddles, through obstacles including dirt and tunnels, past foam which does strange things to the water, and into a pipe leading to Swampy's bathtub.
First of all, how lucky am I that the alligator's name is "SSSwampy!" There are some little movies included in the game which give lots of opportunities to say the name (especially for children working on /s/ blends!)
I insist that my students must tell each other or me how to get the water into the bathtub. This is difficult for them! Many students are able to clear a pathway, but can't even begin to verbally plan and problem solve HOW to get the water where it needs to go.
When they get stuck, I of course use my modeling hierarchy to help them formulate their thoughts: Providing choices: "Should the tunnel go left or right?"; closing sentences: "Draw a line to the......."; or just imitating: "Tell him make a tunnel from the puddle to the pipe!" It is fascinating to see who can and cannot figure out how to solve the problem, and how much scaffolding they need to express what to do.
I love this app because there are applications to more complex science concepts, and also some very basic problem solving. Check out this review, download the free app onto your iPad and let me know if you find it useful during therapy!
