Over the past two weeks in our technology class, we have made a lot of really great children books that we can use in our classroom. Earlier this week we created an I Spy book in small groups. We brought an assortment of small items that we spread out on the floor and took a picture of. We then created a rhyme to go with our picture, just like is done in the real I Spy books. I thought this would be a great activity to do with my kindergarten class; however I would need to scaffold it a little differently. Instead of having students bring objects in, I would give each group a set of objects that were specifically picked to make it easier for students to create two lines of text that rhyme. This activity also wouldn’t be completed until we had developed a positive learning community in our classroom and spent many weeks discussing how to work cooperatively and respect each other’s thoughts and ideas. We also discussed that it would be really neat to have students record the words to their poem on PowerPoint and play it to the class. This would be a neat way to support the struggling readers in the class. All the group pages can then be printed and put together into a class I Spy book for the class library.
Today we learned about digital storytelling which would be a really neat activity to do in the classroom. In class we took pictures that remind us of our college experience and used them to put together a picture book in iPhoto. I didn’t realize that the iPhoto program had so many great features and options in creating photo books. I also really liked the fact that we took the pictures first and then added the text. The large number of photographs is a great inspiration for writing and would hopefully motivate even the most reluctant writers.
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I really liked the idea of having students record their poems. It's a neat way to get them reading, performing, and sharing their work with the rest of the class. I agree that the younger students will need a substantial amount of scaffolding in creating books. Having a positive community within the classroom would help to make an activity like this successful.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the I spy activity as well. Since I don't have a job. . . Yet :) I usually write down all the activities I can and think of all the ways I could use them with different grades. I really like how you have incorporated the book-making into the younger grades. I agree with you and Whitney in that it can be done with kindergarteners, it will just take a bit more preparation on your part as the teacher. I think that this will also get them exciting about reading, and as Dr. Schmidt said, this would be a book they would take home from your library over and over again because of the ownership and having part in making it.
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