i Pad question

I’ve had an ipad 3 for w weeks. I have a kindle fire, but for homeschool , Internet searching, and typing I wanted a bigger screen. I had early readers, a phonics program, artist prints saved from the Internet, and MEP lesson plans and posters on my kindle. Now that I have these on the ipad, I am actually using them for school lessons since the screen size is big enough to not have to zoom in , then back out to change the page. I’m informally teaching 4.5 yo dd to read because she is interested and she is blending on her own. She has used beginner readers on the kindle fire and now the ipad. The bigger screen size is easier for her as well.

We did’t have money for a new ipad, and I had just enough gift money to upgrade to the newer kindle hd, with a bigger screen. Before buying, we found on apple’s website refurbished ipad 3’s for $379. We advanced money from next year’s book budget with my agreement to not buy any more curriculum for next year, lol. The refurbished iPads come with a new outer shell, new battery, and the same warranty as a new ipad. The ipad 4 has improvements over the ipad 3, but for us the ipad 3 meets what I was wanting for our homeschool. One thing I’ve done is look up artist prints online, then save the image to my photos. I’m in process of figuring out how to save public domain audio books on it.

Karen Smith had mentioned wanting a way to organize iBooks. I figured out how to make new folders in iBooks and move books or PDFs into each new folder within iBooks. This has been helpful for homeschool since I now have a separate book folder for world history, US history, geography, Bible, lit, math, poetry, grammar, readers, phonics, etc….

My only downsides to the ipad so far are typing and printing. Our printer isn’t an air one that is compatible with ipad. We have a laptop that I will use for printing, but if we didn’t I would look into the program Doug mentioned in a different thread. If I find I need to type more, I will look into a Bluetooth keyboard. For now I’ll plan to do heavy typing on the laptop. The ipad touch screen is much bigger than the kindle fire’s 7 in screen, so I am typing easier on the ipad compared to the kindle though.

Christie, does your printer have to be hooked up to the wifi?

I have to say I love my iPad much much more than I ever thought I would.

When my daughter was checking out the iPad 2 or 3, she said she was informed by an Apple employee that the only difference between the 2 & 3 is the resolution…when you zoom in on a picture it is much sharper on the 3. I used the program Doug recommended-Fingerprint-before purchasing an air printer and never had issues with printing from my iPad. A Bluetooth keyboard is worth the investment if you will be doing a large amount of typing.

I love my iPad. I rarely get on the computer anymore. It used to be when I wanted to go on a site with flashplayer. With the Photon app, that is no longer an issue. Now everything I need for E is on or accessible through the iPad.

Misceegee, thanks for sharing about the print app, I will definitely use it if I need to print, I’m glad that’s available.

Paula, I downloaded the adobe reader app for free from the App Store once I got the ipad. You can put pdf’s in either the adobe reader or iBooks (another free app download) . After you place them in one of those app boxes, you can move them to the other app if you want. My main advantage over the laptop is portability carrying from room to room during school lessons or taking out somewhere, like on vacation or if my kids have a homeschool class outing, it’s easy to take and use while I’m waiting. Right now I use my year old kindle fire to take places since it fits in my purse, but I imagine I will take the ipad out more when I get a case for it next week. My dh knew a little more than me about setting the ipad up once I got it, but most things I have learned to do through YouTube videos searching for the ipad questions I have or through asking questions on this forum. I’m still learning though.