Bringing Our Favorite Books to Life!

One of the things we love most in our class is to read.  My goal this year is to have the students complete at least one book project a quarter, and instead of assigning them a book to complete whatever project they're working on about, I think this is a great opportunity for the kids to pick books that they love.

In some of our mini-lessons this first quarter we had spent a time learning how to retell stories including the setting, characters, problem, an event from beginning, middle, and end, and finally the solution.  The students chose a book they would like to retell, and to really bring them to life I had each create a retelling moving on their iPads.  The first step was to write at least one sentence for each part of the retelling. After creating an illustration to match each sentence in Drawing Pad, the final step was to put it all together in iMovie. By using the voice recording feature, each student created a short video that retells their story using their own words and illustrations. It's been very powerful for the kids to hear their own voices retelling the story.  Next week we plan to visit a kindergarten class in our school where the kids will read the books then share their retelling videos.  Until then, enjoy these sneak peeks of some of our favorite stories!

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late from Jamestown Elementary School on Vimeo.

Duckling Retelling from Jamestown Elementary School on Vimeo.