Today I wanna share with you an awesome app that I discovered this last week.
It's called FEEL ELECTRIC! and it's put out by the Electric Company.
{Whoaa, hold up..blast from the past..The Electric Company still exists? I use to to watch that when I was a kid! }
Glad to know the Electric Company is still kicking and putting out cool apps like this one-
and to top it off, it's FREE!
You see, I went on a quest last weekend to find an app to help kids talk about their emotions & feelings and hopefully improve their social language skills (pragmatics) -maybe even prevent some behavior problems that we are struggling with right now.
{fingers crossed}
I did that for a few reasons:
1) a bunch of my kiddos are super stressed about our state standardized testing (which is starting tomorrow!) Two of my students have even asked me to pray for them and I've wiped several in tears over it. Please send well wishes our way as we get through this.
2) I have a student who CANNOT read facial expressions- he SWEARS that everyone is looking at him and being mean to him even when they're being helpful or friendly.
3) I have a student with Asperger's Syndrome who needs interventions in the area of pragmatics.
3) In addition to being an SLP at my school, I also have the role of "lead teacher" which means I help all special ed. personnel school wide with a whole slew of things- including intervening with students' behavior issues and creating behavior plans.
We have some little bitty kids with some BIG, BIG emotional/behavioral challenges.
I'm hoping this guy can help me....
When you open FEEL ELECTRIC! you're greeted with this guy.
He's very animated and it's hard not to be drawn in by him!
You can enter the names of 4 students and their data will be kept in the app. The history of the emotions they discuss each day is also kept in memory which I really like so we can refer back to how they felt yesterday, last week, etc.
Oh, and it also keeps their points! (more on that later)
The first thing you have to do is choose the emotions that describe how you are feeling that day.
I did it first and showed my student that I was feeling calm, mopey and hopeful that day.
There are SO many to choose from and if you touch one- it tells you all about that emotion and shows the facial expression that goes with it.
See?
I love that this is teaching vocabulary - it made me realize that all of my students usually just say they're "sad" or "happy" or "mad."
This app takes sad, happy and mad to a whole new level!
After you choose your emotions, the kids on the screen tell about a time that they felt like that, too.
Next, you move on to the various activities that you or your student can choose to do! I needed to address something specific with my student so, in my case, I chose the activity.
You can see the various activites offered under the 3 different sections:
MY LIFE, MY STUFF, & MY GAMES
Under MY LIFE, students can create a Mood Dude (that matches how they're feeling or other various emotions), listen to Moody Tales (that they can customize to be wacky and silly!) or look at the Moodosphere- which is a history of their moods.
Under MY STUFF, students can view
videos, photos ^^^^ (shown above) and listen to music ---then drag STICKERS onto the photos or videos that describe how those make them feel. They can also upload their OWN pictures, videos and music and use the stickers to talk about them.
Under MY GAMES, students can play 3 different games (described below)
The app keeps their scores and encourages them to beat their high score. The games REALLY are fun and slightly addictive. They require kids to associate the names of emotions to facial expressions.
I personally LOVE this app and it's got my wheels are turning about alll the ways we can use this at school. I think the possibilities are wide open!
I've already shared this with one of our counselors- I think this is a great app to use with a child who comes to the counselor's office or detention.
I also think this will hold the interest of my high functioning autistic students who need to develop social language.
Even my kids who just have plain ole test anxiety could benefit from it. Talking about how they feel before the test {along with the distraction and fun of getting to use the iPad} might turn into a great coping strategy for them. That's what I'm banking on.
If you're as excited about it as I am, go grab it at the App Store
If you use it, I'd love to hear how you feel about it.
How am I feeling today?
Grateful you stopped by my little blog
:)
-Mia
If you need activities for pragmatics, I have one for your boys and one for your girls in my TpT store-
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