Create Digital Manipulatives with PicCollage App

Searching for a fun way to enrich my students who had already watched and accounted for the videos for today's lesson, I decided to have them create and use manipulatives to model the addition and subtraction of integers that I had presented in my flipping videos.

My first decision was to just have them use paper, but with other kids in the room catching up on the videos on the class iPads, that almost seemed like a PUNISHMENT. "Good job doing your homework and getting ahead. Now give me back the technology - you can cut paper squares." Not exactly the engaging environment I was hoping to create. While rethinking it during my prep, I opened my iPad just to look through my apps to see which of them might give me some of the create-a-shape-and-then-move-it-around functionality I was seeking.

I settled on the app PicCollage (iOS | Android), which I previously used last year to have students construct a Frayer Model for our exponent rules.

Here are some student examples. Taco vs. Nachos was my favorite. :)

That was "-6 + 12 =" in the blue text, in case you're thinking this kid was as lost I was first thinking when I looked at it. :)

This was is also -6 + 12

7 + (-12)

The real winner was when the creator of smileys vs slushies above used HIS OWN MODEL to help out the kid next to him who was a little confused on how to use the model. Student win!