So today we did something new and it was awesome. Well I thought it was awesome, I think the kids did as well. We worked on the iPads that our librarian let us barrow. I wanted to get the kids off of the computer because it seemed that it was getting stagnant. We split the kids up as equally as we could and had them sit together at large tables. I brought in construction paper that I had lying around and asked them to create a three to four slide narrative. Funny enough when they paired themselves up, the girls sat at one table and the boys sat at the other so when they were working on the story line, you could diffidently see how each group worked out. The girls were very into it and wanted their story line to flow and the boys all had their own ideas and wanted to do what ever they wanted. A little boy named Dillion, had his own agenda entirely...... he was a little harder to get to focus. After picking out their story line they wanted to cover, we asked them to draw a part of it and also write a description.
From there, we took pictures using the iPads but we let the kids (very carefully) handle them and take their own pictures. Many of them could use it better than they used the computers which was kind of surprising to me. Most of them were in first grade and had been going over lessons about the pilgrims and Plymouth and so they, because of Thanksgiving coming up, picked to do a story about the Mayflower and the first thanksgiving. After taking pictures of the images they had drawn we put together a short presentation on Animoto. I was thinking we would use iMovie as we had been taught to make movies in class but because we were working with kindergartners and first graders, we thought this might be a little easier. They were able to do most of it themselves and it turned out to be a very good little presentation about "The First Thanksgiving".
They did all the work: took pictures, cropped them, picked out a the theme of the slide show (girls fire, boys falling leaves....not kidding) and gave each picture a description. Each student thought of what they wanted to add and typed it in. I thought this was really interesting because they would help each other but never did it for the other person. The slide show even had music that they could attach to it which they picked through very thoroughly. The boys, like I said before, pick out a falling leaves background with an acoustic guitar to accompany, which made the presentation entertaining because the first slide was about the Mayflower in which Henry labeled it " And everybody Died".....yeah. But the fact that they picked this all out together was what got me: it gave them the power and the ambition to want to finish the project. Had I given them strict instruction on what to do, I'm not sure they would have followed.
The girls also did a great job. They had a flaming background but no music and their images they had created were a little more detailed. I believe the students learned a lot and so did I. It was interesting to see the react to each other when they had to work together. They have had to work together before but this showed a different side of their team work skills. The only thing I might have changed for next time would be to have them come up with their own story line entirely and not suggest something. All in all, it was probably my favorite day so far.
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