Popplet and Story Mapping

Today we decided to make a plan for the stories we are writing by using Popplet. Popplet is an app that allows the user to create webs that include words, photos from the library, photos that you take, or simple drawings that you can make right in the app. Students worked together in groups to make a plan for their stories that included the characters, setting, problem and solution. Once students had these basic ideas I encouraged them to expand their ideas to include descriptions for their characters and more details about the setting.

It is so interesting to walk around and watch students negotiate the French language trying to think of the right vocabulary word and then subsequently try to figure out how to spell it. I love to hear them all share their different spelling strategies (word wall, personal dictionary, a book in the classroom, sounding-it-out...).

Here are some Popplets:

Next week students are going to use these webs to write their stories using the Book Creator app.

Free play

Students have free play time everyday. I think this time is critical for early primary students. Today, one student took it upon herself to make some houses out of wood. Then she took pictures of them and labelled them. Here is her work:

I can't tell you how excited I was to see a student using the iPads and creating her own activity. It was neat to see her making a connection between some of the things we have been doing and her own ideas.

Plants, Skitch, and Book Creator

We have been studying plants for the past few weeks. Today I decided that the students would demonstrate their leaning by using Skitch and Book Creator. Students worked in groups of four and were asked to do one of four things. They were assigned; the needs of a plant, the parts of a plant, or the life cycle of a bean. Students used Skitch to either draw or take photos. Students labelled the parts of their drawings and then saved them. Once saved, students opened Book Creator and began to create a book with their drawings and labels. Students also took turns recording their voices and sharing their information.

Skitch is great because it is compatible with Evernote so the work can be saved a student's notebook (eportfolio). This is helpful when iPads are shared with other classes. You don't need to worry if another student deletes or changes the work. I like Book Creator because not only can you open the book in epub form you can also email the book as a pdf.

Here are some screenshot examples of picture drawn or photos taken and labelled using Skitch.

My students used these in Book Creator to write and record their own book. Below are some screenshots of the pages of one book. You can see the audio symbol where the students recorded their voices. Unfortunately, you can't hear the recordings because these are just screenshots.

Now I need to learn how to insert a pdf into this blog??? Ideass? Suggestions?? Still new to this blogging thing :)