A new project has begun...
Our new writing project has was created from our topic - Inside the Earth. We started looking at fossils and the children's imagination took off with ideas around what would happen if dinosaurs came to school. I think they were still buzzing from the last story and wanted to make them shrink!
Out of reflections from the last project, I want the children to be more involved and aware of the process so we started with really talking about what we wanted to achieve and how we would know if we had. We talked about what makes a good story and made links between stories they have read and made connections with what the writer had to do to make them so interesting. Here is what we came up with...
Out of reflections from the last project, I want the children to be more involved and aware of the process so we started with really talking about what we wanted to achieve and how we would know if we had. We talked about what makes a good story and made links between stories they have read and made connections with what the writer had to do to make them so interesting. Here is what we came up with...
I have used this step model a lot when we are co-constructing projects together, I find its a good way to show the children the steps we need to be successful. Its also a good way of planning out what needs to happen first as children often want to jump into the publishing part.
As the project continues, we'll keep looking ahead to what we need to do next and keep referring to our goals and success criteria.
As the project continues, we'll keep looking ahead to what we need to do next and keep referring to our goals and success criteria.
Before we went out to take our pictures, we talked about what angle would be best and also about foreground, background and middle ground. I wanted the children to really make their pictures interesting so when they come to write they have clear images. One thing I need to work on is how to use light in photos as that was something I tended to need to support them with as I walked around.
The class had a great time taking pictures using their characters I loved that fact that they were naturally beginning to make up their story with so much enthusiasm and creativity.
The class had a great time taking pictures using their characters I loved that fact that they were naturally beginning to make up their story with so much enthusiasm and creativity.
Getting into the writing.
After the photos were taken, the children put their pictures into the order they wanted for their story. They tried a few different apps - Strip Design, Pizap and Book Creator - in the end Book Creator was better because you could see the pictures better. But to be honest, too much time had pasted in between taking the pictures and putting the story together. I found the children had forgotten what their story was - especially those who weren't as involved in taking photos. It highlighted that the initial collaboration task of taking the photos, wasn't true collaboration as there was not shared responsibility between the team.
We constantly revisited our check list of what makes a good story, and in doing so I decided to create a multitouch book using the children's pictures. I wanted to focus on making each sentence sound different so we watch a uTube clip on different sentence openers. This was a really successful lesson so I used it as a guide for my book.
The creation of this book was definitely the highlight of this project as the class loved using it.
We constantly revisited our check list of what makes a good story, and in doing so I decided to create a multitouch book using the children's pictures. I wanted to focus on making each sentence sound different so we watch a uTube clip on different sentence openers. This was a really successful lesson so I used it as a guide for my book.
The creation of this book was definitely the highlight of this project as the class loved using it.
Click on this URL to download my multitouch book - Six Sensational Sentence Starters
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/six-sensational-sentence-starters/id1315488789?ls=1&mt=11
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/six-sensational-sentence-starters/id1315488789?ls=1&mt=11
The writing process |
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Throughout the whole project, we kept adding to what steps we needed to do to achieve our goal. For me this is a way of adding student voice into your planning and allowing children to see the big picture.
