Thursday is App Day- ABC Magnetic Board Lite

Every Thursday, we post about an app or a website that we use with students for educational purposes. This week, I am writing about ABC Magnetic Board Lite from Dragonflies Unlimited. This free app has many paid renditions if you want additional sets of magnets or lower case letters. However, so far, the lite version has been fine for my purposes.


I have used this app with some of my students with intellectual disabilities so that they can practice encoding. The letters are bigger than a keyboard and the students can move the letters with their fingers so it is a great way for them to practice spelling some of the words they are working to learn. While I use it with upper elementary students, I think that younger students with or without disabilities would really enjoy practicing their sight words using the electronic magnetic board.

One of my favorite aspects of this app is the feature that allows us to email messages that we create. We have sent messages to parents, other teachers, and even other students in different schools. This provides such an important purpose to my students' work because they love to get reactions and receive responses. The screen is not large enough to write much but certainly "Hi Mom, How are you? From Melanie" fits without a problem. Again, I have not spent the additional money to have decorating stickers and choices of letters, but there are many different choices for students who want more pizzazz on their messages. Many more complex and pricier magnetic boards are available to purchase for the iPad. If anyone has bought them, I'd welcome your reviews!