Reader's Theater...Digitally: Part Two

In an earlier post I explained how our 5th graders were making digital stories for their kindergarten buddies.  Last week the students finished their projects and will be sharing them with their buddies tomorrow.  They worked hard to get them done.  After practicing their reader's theater scripts and finding copyright free images online they got the iPods and used the iMovie app to put together their digital story.  Students used the Google Drive app to access the images they found the week before.

After loading all the pictures for the story, students then recorded themselves performing their script.  Next they worked on adding titles, sound effects and credits.  They then uploaded the finished movie to their Google Drive, shared it and emailed me the link.

 I linked all of their stories to the 5th grade classroom Google site.The finished projects turned out great!  I'm sure their buddies are going to love them.  Click below to see their stories.

5th Grade Digital Stories

Going Places Safely

At Magee we use the Common Sense Media (CSM) scope and sequence to help teach internet safety, information literacy, privacy and creative credit and copyright.  The lessons are so easy to use.  I sometimes use them as they are and sometimes I just pull out pieces that apply to a project we are doing.  This week I used the Going Places Safely lesson with our first graders.  It compares going on a class field trip with  going online.  Field trips are something our first graders are quite familiar with.  After talking about field trips we've been on and rules we follow while on a field trip, we shared all the fun things we like to do online. We then learned the three rules for being safe online:

1.  Always ask a parent or teacher before going online.
2.  Only talk to people you know.
3.  Stick to places that are just right for you.

It was then time to visit two great sites for kids: The San Diego Zoo and Destination Modern Art .  First graders just finished studying Australia and there is a great section on Australian animals at the San Diego Zoo site.

Students filled out a handout sharing their favorite place they visited.  The handout included the three rules for being safe online.

Students were engaged on both the sites.  There was plenty to do and learn on both.

Reader's Theater... Digitally!

A special program that Magee 5th graders and kindergarteners get to experience every year is "Buddies".  One or two 5th graders are paired up with a kindergartner all year.  They get together once a week to do all sorts of fun and educational  activities.  It's something all Magee students look forward to: being a big buddy in 5th grade.  Mrs. Behnke, a 5th grade teacher at Magee, teaches reading and writing to all of the 5th graders.  She, along with her teaching partner, Mr. Suhr, wanted the 5th graders to do something special for their buddies.  Mrs. Behnke also wanted her students to work on reading fluency.  That's when she thought of Reader's Theater!  We put the students into groups and had them pick a script.  We talked to them about practicing and that they have to read the script many times to become fluent.  We also had them work on using lots of expression and changing their voice for the characters they are reading.  After all, their audience is five and six year olds!

I wanted the students to have more experience with some digital tools, so we decided to have them turn their reader's theater script into a digital story for their buddy.  After some practice with the script, they started to look for copyright free images they could use in their story.  They are saving them to their Google Drive so they can access them from the Google Drive app on the iPods that we will start using next week.  It was a great start and I can't wait to see what next week brings!

For Just One Day

Working with first graders is so fun.  They are willing to try anything!  After meeting with first grade teachers Mrs. Coss and Mrs. Trost, we decided that we needed to get the first graders using Google Apps.  We came up with a project idea that would be fun and simple and would have our first graders using Google Mail and Drive.   I used our subscription to TumbleBook Library to find a story to use and I found a great book, For Just One Day by Laura Leuck. The child in the story imagines that he is all different kinds of animals for just one day.  First graders love animals and using their imagination!

After listening to the story, I had the first graders log in to Kerpoof, which they have been using already, and draw a picture of an animal they would like to be for just one day.  Here is Brooke's squirrel.


 The next time we met I had already created a template and shared it with them.  Both classes worked really hard that day. We logged into our Google accounts for the first time, found the email from me and opened the template up.  I then showed them how we were all on the same document but that we each needed to make our own copy.  They got right to work typing their piece.



Here is Brooke's finished piece.




The next time we met I  worked with small groups of students to save the pictures they made in Kerpoof as a JPEG and insert those into their Google Drive piece.  The students then shared their stories with me.  I used my FlipSnack EDU account to put all of their stories into an online flip book.  Here are the links to each class book.  Enjoy!

Mrs. Coss
Mrs. Trost

          Brady sharing his story with the class.