Written by: 1st Grade Teachers at Prairie Rose
The students in first grade at Prairie Rose Elementary, are authors and illustrators, and now App Smashers. Just ask them, and they will tell you all about it!
All year they have been working hard during Writing Workshop to become writers of all different kinds of books. Their latest genre, non-fiction, was no exception.
The students started by picking a topic they loved and wanted to teach others about. Then it was time for them to start researching! Students found information they felt was important to teach their readers and started writing. They included an introduction, facts about their topic, a diagram, beautifully illustrated pictures, and a conclusion.
As they finished up their non-fiction All About books, it was time to start planning a new and engaging way to showcase their hard work. This is how our first-grade students became App Smashers!
App Smashing happens when you create something in two different apps and then merge it together for one final masterpiece. It is a fantastic opportunity for students to take their technology skills to the next level.
They started by learning how to use a new app called ChatterPix Kids --a fun and creative app that allows students to take a picture, draw a mouth, and make the picture talk. The next step was learning how to take their ChatterPix Kids creations and merge it with Seesaw, the platform students use as a digital portfolio to demonstrate their thinking and learning every day.
The students used ChatterPix Kids to record a book introduction. They took a picture of themselves and told their readers their name, the title of their All About book, a fun fact, and how excited they were to share their book. Next, they uploaded the video to their Seesaw and published it to their class blog.
To showcase their work to a bigger audience, we connected our class blogs so students could read books written by their friends and leave comments, emojis, and voice feedback cheering one another on. They are all so proud of their work. Who knows, maybe someday you will see one of their books in a store!