Category Archives: My Story

Fun with Dinosaurs!

We have been having a lot of fun creating books about dinosaurs!  We used a combination of two apps and “smashed” them together to create our dinosaur books.  It is called app smashing when you use several apps together to create a project.  Click on the play button to see two of the books that were created!

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One of the apps we used is an augmented reality app called Walking with Dinosaurs.  We use the photo booth option in the app to create pictures that add an augmented image of a dinosaur to a photo!  We had a lot of fun creating photos in which we posed with an augmented image of a dinosaur!  We will be using these pictures for a creative writing exercise.

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The children used the app themselves to take pictures with their favourite dinosaur in various settings in the classroom.  The children had to take about ten different pictures of their dinosaurs super imposed on a variety of settings.  They had to resize their dinosaur and figure out how to pose it and then take the picture. They saved their favourite efforts to the camera roll.

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Then they imported their pictures to another app called My Story.  The children have to create the pages and then import their pictures to each page on their iPads.  They add text to the picture and create a story!

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I am very proud of the students because it takes quite a bit of thinking to take pictures using the iPads and add an augmented image that they need to resize.  Then they had to save it to the camera roll, open another app, open a new story within the app, go to the camera roll, import the pictures, resize the pictures, add text, and use the text prompt to check for spelling.  Then they repeated the process to make the required number of pages.  Pretty good for six year olds!

 

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Filed under Augmented Reality, iPads, My Story, Walking with Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Fun!

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We have been working on creating stories on the iPad using two different apps.  We are creating the pictures using an augmented reality app called Walking with Dinosaurs.  It lets us put a 3D image of a dinosaur in a photo.  It is amazing because it looks very real!

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The children are using the Walking with Dinosaurs app using the Photo Booth option.  They choose the dinosaur they would like to have in their story and then pose the dinosaur with something in the classroom.  We have dinosaurs reading books, playing with Lego, playing with the toy dinosaurs, and hanging out!  The children take the picture and save it to the camera roll.  Then they open the My Story app and import the picture from the camera roll into their story.

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We are almost finished our dinosaur stories.  The children have been taking turns going to our “recording studio” to record themselves reading the pages of their books!  We are almost ready to share! They will be posted on this blog very soon!

We have also worked on a dinosaur research project.  We learned all about the Apatosaurus (also known as Brontosaurus).  The children sorted the facts about Apatosaurus into four categories.  After we read through all the facts the children decided which category was the best fit for the fact.

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The children glued the facts onto the correct category sheet and we created our dinosaur reports!

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Check them out to learn some cool facts about Apatosaurus!

 

 

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Filed under Augmented Reality, Dinosaurs, iPads, My Story, Walking with Dinosaurs

Counting Book Fun!

This is one of the counting books that one of our students finished making today!  The children have been using the My Story app to create simple counting books!  This app is a very versatile app!  The children can use a variety of mediums to create their books.  For this project the children used the stamps within the app to create a simple count-up book!  The children had to choose the image, learn how to copy it as many times as needed for each page, add the appropriate text, and then record their text for each page!

It sounds pretty simple but please remember that we are only in Grade One!  That’s a lot of steps! Creating the book, adding pages, adding images, and then copying them as needed, adding text including the correct spelling and punctuation, and then finally recording them is really quite impressive!  All by themselves!

 

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When the children finished their stories, I had them record their sentences in our “recording booth”!  It is a quieter spot to allow their voices to shine!  We still get a bit of background noise but it is helpful noise!

I love this app because you can save the book as a movie, which lets me share it with you!  I can upload the movie to our Youtube channel and then put the link to the movie on this page for you to view!

Here is another one!

 

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They were so focused!

Hope you enjoy them viewing them as much as we enjoyed making them!  Too much fun!

 

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Filed under iPads, My Story, Youtube

Open House Fun with Augmented Reality!

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We had a great time getting ready to share our projects for our Open House evening.  The children practiced using Aurasma to share their projects.  We love using augmented reality apps to share our projects.

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It was fun to see how excited they were opening their projects and taking a look at their friend’s projects too.

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I loaded all the projects on our class channel so the students could view any of the auras we had created.

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Each snowman triggers the corresponding video that we created using Chatterpix.  You should be able to use the pictures on our Snowman project page to view all of the auras if you follow our channel.

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Our channel is called mrsantonsclass.  If you open the Aurasma app and search for our channel using the search option our channel should come up.  If you follow our channel all of our cool auras should be accessible.  You could also use the trigger images we created  to view our iMovie trailers about Dinosaurs and Space that we created using the pictures we created using the Walking with Dinosaurs app, NASA Spacecraft 3D, and our new favorite go-to app – Green Screen by Do-ink.  The trigger image is embedded on the creative writing pages.  We linked the movie trailers to the projects using Aurasma!  You should be able to view the movie trailers at home using the Aurasma app and the trigger image of the dinosaur or the spacecraft!  Just remember to follow our channel!

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  We have talking dinosaur pictures and talking snowmen!

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The children also got a chance to share their books that they have created.

Here are a few samples!

We used a lot of different apps to create our projects.  Our favorite apps to create these books are My Story and Explain Everything.  

 

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We had a great turnout for our Open House evening!  Thank you to everyone who made the special effort to come back to school in the evening to view our projects! It was greatly appreciated!  Thanks to Isaak’s, Abrielle’s and Rayva’s Moms for helping me get the refreshments ready!

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Rayva’s Mom made some awesome cupcakes for the event. Very yummy!

We shared a Photo Story about all of our projects too!  We hope you enjoyed viewing the projects!

Sorry I didn’t get any pictures during the Open House!  But we were very busy!

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Filed under Augmented Reality, Aurasma, Green Screen, iPads, My Story, Spacecraft 3D, Walking with Dinosaurs

More Fun with Augmented Reality Dinosaur Movies!

Here are a few more of our dinosaur books!  I am very impressed with these books as the children used a few different apps to create them.  They were actually “app-smashing”!  When you use a variety of different apps to create your projects and put them together to create something entirely new it is called app smashing!

They took the pictures they created using the Walking with Dinosaurs app and imported them into the My Story app.   This is a multi-step process!  First, they have to take the picture in Walking with Dinosaurs which involved choosing their dinosaur, resizing it to fit the picture, choosing what they wanted their dinosaur to do and then taking the picture!

Then they had to save it to the camera roll, open My Story, choose to import a picture, find their picture in the camera roll, import it into the page, re-size the picture to fit the page, and then add the text to match the picture.   Then they repeated the steps for four more pages!

Then they added text and recorded their voices reading their stories!

Very proud of my Grade Ones!

After they were finished I saved their story as a movie and uploaded it to Youtube.

Then I loaded the URRL code into this blog post and voila!  Augmented reality dinosaur stories!  Enjoy!

More stories coming your way soon!

 

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Filed under Augmented Reality, Dinosaurs, iPads, My Story, Walking with Dinosaurs, Youtube

AR Dinosaur Movie Fun!

We have been having a great time with the Walking with Dinosaurs app and the My Story app this week!  Today we put all of our work together to create these awesome books!  The children had to take pictures of their favourite dinosaurs within the Walking with Dinosaurs app first.  This is the first time that the children had the opportunity to take pictures by themselves using the iPads this year in class.  They also had to postion their chosen augmented image of the dinosaur in the picture before they could take the picture.

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The children had to make at least four pictures to make their books first.

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They had to figure out what they wanted to have their dinosaur doing in their story and then take a picture of the dinosaur doing it!

Then they opened up the My Story app and imported their pictures from the camera roll to each page of their book.  As usual, they were absolutely fearless!  They didn’t even bat an eye and just jumped right in and created these amazing books!

When they imported their pictures they had to position the picture on the page.  Then they added text to their page.  After they completed their pages, the students went to our “recording studio” to record their stories.  ( We found them a little quiet spot for them to record their stories.)  After a few of them had recorded their stories they became the experts that helped their classmates complete their recordings!  I had a lot of eager helpers!

The My Story app is a great little app that just got even better.  With the last update I made I discovered that it now has several new ways to share the stories you can create.  The best option for our class is the option to share the book as a movie.  We were able to share each book as a movie, open it in iMovie and save it to the camera roll.  Then you can take the movie and upload it to Youtube.  We think we have uploaded the first book made using pictures created with Walking with Dinosaurs app!  The children had a great time creating these books and were awesome about helping each other figure things out!

I have a lot of eager students who are very keen to have their books uploaded to Youtube for the world to see!  I managed to get these ones up today!  Please watch for the others coming soon!

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Filed under Augmented Reality, iPads, My Story, Walking with Dinosaurs, Youtube

Too Much Number Fun!

IMG_1477We have been working with place value concepts in anticipation of our 100th Day of school!

The children had a great time being the giant hand on the projector creating numbers using the base ten materials.

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 The children have also been learning how to create sets of ten using a variety of materials as well as creating sets of 100 on the iPads.  Last week I found a really cool app for place value called Base Ten Fun!  You can find the game on the the ABCYa! Site as well!  It is fun to assign math practise and have the children cheer!  

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We have been working hard on our Snowmen projects as well.  The children have been creating books about their snowmen using the My Story app.  I LOVE this  app.  The children have become very proficient at it.  We can import files left, right, and center!  We are looking forward to sharing these projects with you at an Open House day soon!

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We have been creating stories about the snowmen.  Here is a sample of what a snowman likes to eat!

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Here are some more snowmen diagrams created with Doodle Buddy!

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I never get tired of seeing the wonderful illustrations that children are willing to create for me on the iPads!

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Filed under Doodle Buddy, iPads, Math, My Story, Winter

Here come the Snowmen! And the Penguins!

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The snowman project is my favourite project of the year!  The snowmen are absolutely fantastic!  Thank you for supporting this project with such enthusiasm!

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They are all so different and it looks like you had some fun making them! These are just a few of them.  I hope to create a gallery online of all of them!

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We are using the snowmen as a jumping off point for some writing we will be doing.  We are  compiling some pages together to make each snowman’s story!

We will be using My Story and Doodle Buddy to create the pages for the books!

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We have already made the diagram page using Doodle Buddy! I love the detail and the colours!  The children just love drawing using the iPads.

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We have also been working on a small mini unit about penguins.  After reading several books about penguins and watching the penguin video on Tumblebooks we working on a penguin research project.

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We sorted a set of facts that I have compiled for them into four different groups.  Then the children cut them out and glued them to the appropriate category page.  This is the result!  The children are quite proud of them!

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We are starting to work on place value.  We used the iPads and the app Doodle Buddy to learn about making 100 things.  The children had to make ten sets of ten different stamps using the stamp tool.

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They had a lot of fun and it was a great way of reinforcing the idea of  ten sets of ten!

We have been learning a lot of different strategies to use to add.  The most recent strategy has been using the number line.  The children have learned to count on from the biggest number with counters and now they are using the number line to count on.  They like that it is much quicker!  I have introduced the app Math Bingo.

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It is a great app that allows them to practise their number facts in a fun way.  So far, we have only used the addition facts.  However this app lets them practise addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  So this app could be good for big brother or sister too!  You can also find it on ABCYah!   You can see that they use their number line to help them figure out the answers!  Eventually, they will know them by memory with enough practise!

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We have also been working with  some fun new counters playing Add It Up!  Everyone makes a story on their workspace and then they go around and solve their friend’s stories.

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Here’s another one of the snowmen!  Aren’t they great!

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Filed under Doodle Buddy, iPads, My Story, Penguins, Winter

Counting Snowmen and Snowflakes!

amyOver the past week or so we have been continuing to work on our Winter theme.  We have really been having fun with snowmen!  Some of the snowmen for our snowmen project have been coming in and they are fabulous!  We will be incorporating them into a writing project that we are creating with the iPads.  One of the first things we have done is to draw diagrams of snowmen using Doodle Buddy on the iPads!

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The children first have to draw the snowmen and then learn how to use text boxes to label them.  Quite an operation!  The children   have to learn how to create text boxes, add text, and then move the text box to the correct spot to label the picture.  Then we take a screen shot of their product so that we can use it in our book project!

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The children have also been working on the app My Story to create a “how to” book on How to Make a Snowman.  We learned how to create a story board to show what we wanted to create and what needed to be incorporated into each page.  Almost all of the children have completed the books and I hope to email them to you this week as soon as they are done!  We had some help figuring out why we couldn’t email them which was really appreciated!  Thanks, Ryan!

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We also created a snowman flip book that is in the final stages of completion and should make it home to you shortly!  They did a fabulous job! Four snowmen turn into many, many snowmen with three cuts!  They had a good giggle at all the different snowmen they could create!

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We also made a little mini book about snowflakes to practise learning about plurals!

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During silent reading time we have been using the iPads!  On Friday, the children used the app The Monster at the End of this Book which is a fantastic little app.  I never get tired of it and it was a treat to listen to  all the giggles when the children were viewing the book.  I like this app because it highlights each word as it is being read to the child.  We use our headphones during silent reading time so all I can hear is the giggles!  You can see that they are spellbound by the story!

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Filed under Doodle Buddy, iPads, My Story, Winter

Meet our New Authors!

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Today I introduced a new story writing app to the class and I have to say it was awesome!  The app is called My Story.  This app allows the children to draw pictures for each page, add text to the picture, and then record themselves reading the text on the page.  Too cool!  There is also the option to take a picture with the ipad or import a picture to use.  When it is complete you can choose an option to read your book.  But that’s not all!  You also have the option to email the book to someone or export it to your iBook library.  It comes up as a real book on your digital bookshelf!  Too much fun!

 

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I had played around with it at home and created a little book for a demo.  I showed the students my little book and then showed them how to create their own.  Well!  Off they went!  The pictures are amazing!  I love the drawings on the ipads because they are so vibrant!  For some reason, the children really go the extra mile on their pictures when they draw on the ipad and are often willing to make numerous revisions of their work.

Take a look at this picture!

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They wrote their own sentences to go with the pictures with a little help from their dictionaries and some key words on the whiteboard.  Not bad for a first effort.  Their little voices narrating their stories is the icing on the cake.

The completed stories were saved to the iBook library.  For some reason I was not able to email the stories today but I was able to email my story to myself at home so I imagine it is a little glitch that I will have to overcome at school.  Hopefully I will be able to email you a copy of one of your child’s books soon!

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When the children had completed their stories we put them up on the big screen for everyone to see and hear!  Love the projectors we have in the classrooms now.   Just a great way to share work!

I have to say that their books were much, much better than mine!  Can’t wait to see what they create next time!

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