With this project, the students will recreate a story from their reading series using the application, "Story Kit." The story that they will use is called "The Last Dragon." The students will copy photos into the Story Kit application and then write a small summary of the story (with beginning, middle and end) under each photo. The students will also make predications and add a voice recording. This voice recording will cover the reading strategy, questioning. The students will be required to ask questions about the story or characters using the "Questioning for Understanding Relationships." The students can also include statements such as, the main idea of the story or their opinion of the story. I am very excited to introduce this application to my students because many of the reading strategies are covered in such an enjoyable way. Thank you to the person who opened my eyes to this application.
In this project, students will create a nine slide Keynote presentation of California’s four major regions. This template was created over the summer by Heather Peterson. The first slide will consist of a title page and each different page will have a picture slide representing the region and after this slide, there will be a picture slide and a postcard slide where students can write to their families. The students will finish the project by adding transitions and recording their voices. I chose this project because it will help in comprehending one of our main Social Studies standards, the California Regions. Also, this project covers many writing standards. I know that the students will enjoying creating the keynote.
Since this project covers a very important fourth grade social studies standard, the students must comprehend the major information that they will read about the four regions in their social studies book first. This project will aid in comprehension because the students will have to look back in their social studies books and reread to find information for the keynote presentation. The students will also have to monitor and clarify their work with the notes they will have taken on their ipod touch. Finally, The students will create the keynote presentation to show visually, that they have comprehended the information. The voice over will be a final way for the students to share their learned information.
This is an example of the original blog I posted called, Where in the World Do I Live? Keynote presentation that the students created with slides, voice over, and transitions. As for the process, this project was completed in steps. First, they completed their writing, editing their work with a partner. It's amazing that students still forget what state and city they live in. This is a great reminder for the students and is a help to the second language learners. For the second step, the students added their pictures to go along with their work. Next, the students added the transitions. The learning process here was making sure that the students added enough time for each transition. Also, they needed to be prepared that the transition time should allow for voice over. The voice over was the last and final piece of this product. I really liked using this as an introduction to Keynote and I believe that this idea could be used in any grade level starting at third grade. What I did change already was adding the voice over. The original lesson did not have voice over. Also, if I was teaching fifth grade, I may add more info. on a specific state in the United States. Basically I would modify the lesson to meet the needs of each grade level.
