Virtual Dollhouse is Great for Academic Purposes

Submitted 10 years ago

Community Review for My PlayHome

Jennifer A.
Jennifer A.
My Rating
Pedagogy
Supports

My Take

The app is very flexible and can be used for a variety of academic purposes. The free version works fine for the way we use it. The paid version offers additional options such as more rooms and more racially diverse family members. The store version is also a hit with students.

How I Use It

I have the free version of this app which only has the kitchen and living room. However, my 2nd grade students still enjoy playing with this app during their choice time. For specific lessons I use this app for a variety of academic content. All of the activities involve students first creating a scene then taking a screenshot and finally importing the screenshot into another app. During math students create word problems in the My Story app related to the scene. During ELA they add dialogue in Strip Designer or label parts of speech or prepositions using Skitch. The can also create a series of scenes and import them to Popplet or Pic Collage or Timeline to show sequence of events.

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Joanna S.
Joanna S. Teacher Carolina Friends School Durham, NC
December 31, 2013

Simple but fun, open-ended dollhouse for young kids

This dollhouse is a good choice for a play-based early childhood program, special needs classrooms, or therapy environments. It is quite similar to a real dollhouse--the people move in limited ways (they will stand, sit, or lay down, and hold some objects) and some items in the house are interactive (lights turn on and off, toys and furniture move around, stereo turns on, etc.). There is some racial diversity in the families, and you can access all the dolls in any room (they fall in and bounce around when you select them). There are multiple moms and dads, so you can create any type of family you choose. This app would be a good choice when a real dollhouse is impractical, or for helping young children become familiar with the iPad interface.
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