App review: Writer's Hat

Writer's Hat by Linda Amos
Available for iphone and ipad.
Cost: $1.29

For iphone

For ipad

Writer's Hat was created by Linda Amos, a teacher and Assistant Principal from Melbourne, Australia.
Ms Amos created Writer's Hat to inspire creative writing, oral literacy and imaginative thinking.  It was designed with classroom teachers in mind, however is easily used by therapists and families as well.

Writer's Hat is a simple app that consists of a word generator for categories - Who, What, Where and When.  Students are encouraged to use the words generated for creative writing.  Students who have difficulty with handwriting may also use the app to tell the story (with no writing component). Students may also use the words generated to type out a story on the ipad or desktop computer.  

Writer's Hat is an ideas generator to inspire creative writing, oral literacy and imaginative thinking.

---

The app also includes a second page called the "Word Box".  This is a word generator for nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.  This can be used in the same way as the "Writer's Hat" page.

Word Box generates words for creative writing, oral literacy and imaginative writing.

---

Writer's Hat and Word Box come with an extensive list of words for each category, however you may personalise this by editing the word lists.  You could add the names of students and family members. You may edit the spelling of words (which may be different when not in an Australian context). 

I enjoy using this app with kids in therapy.  It is a useful tool to have working with kids who get stuck with ideas and don't know where to start with their creative writing.  Kids like the "random" nature of words mysteriously appearing on the screen.  You could use this app within a family context to see if you can create a story together.  Let me know if your kids enjoy this app or if you find it useful in your context.