Saturday Apps #11: PhotoCollage and a TPT SALE!

I know it's Sunday and it's been awhile but. . . . 

Apps make the world go round....well not quite, but they do make our mobile devices go.  I stumble upon apps, I find apps on Pinterest and Facebook and seek out apps on AppsGoneFree. 

Today I'd like to feature PhotoCollage Maker by Kai Xia.

This is a free app, available in the iTunes store and I use it ALL THE TIME lately mainly so I can quickly and easily show many pics of my kids to their grandmas and other family members on Facebook.  This is one I whipped up the other night when my daughter and I took a drive and had a little adventure.

What's so great: you can put multiple pics together, add text (whatever font, size, color, placement) and add borders.  Here are the specifics:

And the BEST part is that, since they can be saved to your picture roll, you can print them!  I printed a few to Walgreens the other night to see what they would look like.  My choices were either 4x4" or 8x8" and I went with the smaller size. They are so cute!  

I had this thingamajiggy from the Target dollar bins laying around and finally found a use for it!

So how does this relate to teaching?  My first thought is that I'm going to go through all of my teaching pins on Pinterest and make collages of things I definitely want to do this year.  I love to pin things on Pinterest but I hardly ever go back and look at my pins to remind me what I wanted to do so I'm going to put them in a little photo album and keep it open on my desk to keep me on track!  

Another idea I had was to suggest this app to parents and, for a special writing assignment, have kids create their own little collage to serve as a writing prompt.  The photo print can be attached to their writing and proudly displayed in the hallway.  A perfect, poignant, book to serve as the inspiration is

It's a book about having a special, treasured object that brings back memories. Kids can make a mini photo collage with pictures of their treasured object and then write about it.  I did this a few years ago, minus the app and photos, and it was such a sweet, touching way to motivate kids to write and share more about them with our classroom community.

This Monday, August 3rd and 4th, my entire TPT store will be on sale during the site-wide Back-To-School SALE.

Happy August!