We are starting a new year and so we have created our first digital book about our school this year! We read a story in one of our books about a school. We decided to create our own version using the iPad. First, we decided which places we needed to have in our book. Then, we went around the school and took pictures with an iPad of the places in our school the children thought were important. The Big Rock and Chester were key items on our list!
The next step was to take the pictures and import them into a neat app called Strip Designer that lets us add captions to our pictures. We saved those pages to the camera roll and then imported them into another app called Explain Everything which lets us create a book! We imported each page onto its own page in Explain Everything and then recorded our voices saying the words on each page.
After we finished recording, we saved our book as a movie. Then we watched and listened to the book we created about our school. We hope you enjoy it! You may recognize a voice or two!
This is the alphabet book that we created this year using augmented reality! We think it is pretty cool!
We used a combination of apps to create this project. The children have been using the app AR Alphabet Flashcards this year a lot!
They love trying to hold the augmented images that appear when you hold the iPad over the trigger images.
We created the pictures for our pages in our book by having each student pick a letter. Then they searched the classroom to find other real objects that began with the letter they had chosen. We grouped the letters together around the trigger image picture. Then we opened up the app and took a picture of our collections with the trigger imaged engaged.
The children then imported the picture they took into the app Strip Designer from the camera roll. We used a simple frame to title each page. They then used the balloon option in this app to label the objects in the picture.
I imported all the pictures into Explain Everything in alphabetical order. Then we had Owen, Celia, and Elsa narrate the story!
We then saved it to the camera roll and I uploaded it to our Youtube channel to share with the world!
We have been having a lot of fun with our frog unit! The children have been working on creating a page using the iPads and an app called Strip Designer to create a page about the life cycle of a frog.
I pre-loaded some pictures of the various stages of the life cycle on the iPads and saved them to an album for the children.
They had to open up the camera roll and place the pictures in the frame we had chosen. After they had chosen their pictures and placed them in the corresponding spots they had to add the text.
As usual, they were fearless.
I had the children take turns one at a time on one iPad.
When one person finished they passed the iPad on the next person!
We also completed a research project about frogs!
We read the facts together and sorted them into the appropriate categories!
Then we put these covers on them! And we put them in a little pond! Ribbit!
We have been working with some Augmented Reality apps in the classroom over the last few weeks. The newest one is AR Flashcards Shapes and Colors.
This is a really neat app that introduces colors and shapes in a fun way. The children hold the iPad over the trigger images and these lovely augmented images appear. You can change the color of the shape by tapping the color icons at the top of the screen. Lots of fun practice learning about colors and shapes.
There is a story in one of our beginning readers that talks about shapes. We decided to make our own book using these augmented images as a starting point!
The students searched our classroom for the different shapes and then we arranged our collections around the trigger image picture. Then we took a picture of the shapes within the app with the trigger image engaged. Next, we opened up the Strip Designer app, imported the picture and added a sentence about the shape to the page.
Then we opened up the Explain Everything app and imported our pages to make a book. The students volunteered to narrate the pages. We saved our book to the camera roll and uploaded our book to YouTube. This is the result!
This was a fun project! They had a great time searching for the shapes we needed and arranging them around the trigger image! Great practice and fun, too!
We have been having a lot of fun during the first few weeks of this school year! We have had a lot of fun creating a book using the iPad based on a story we have been working on in one of our readers.
The story focuses on introducing the school in the story. We decided to create our own book about our own school using the iPads.
We had a great time travelling all around the school taking pictures of the important sites in the school according to the children! Then we imported the pictures into an app called Strip Designer and added the text. Then we imported these pages into another app called Explain Everything to create our book. Then we recorded our voices reading the text. We saved our book to the camera roll and exported it to Youtube. We hope you enjoy our efforts!
I have also been experimenting with Aurasma again this year. This app allows us to attach files to a trigger image such as a picture. When you view the picture within the Aurasma app it triggers the attached file to display. You need to follow our class on the Aurasma app to see the Aura.
To see our auras, please follow the following steps.
1.Download the app Aurasma on your device. It works on iPads, and iPhones. I believe there is also an android version. The app is free. It will ask you if you want to register. You do not need to register to see the auras.
2. Search for our channel and follow it. Our site is
mrsantonsclass or mrsantonsgradeone
You can do this by choosing the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen. Type in either site name. Our channel should come up! (I have tried it on every device in my house and had my family try it so it should work!) Then choose the Follow button. The text will change to Following.
(image from KPM Doodles)
You should then see a little snapshot of the picture above.
3. You can then trigger the aura by choosing the option at the bottom of your screen that has the four corners (the one in the middle).
Aim your device at the trigger image above on this screen on your computer and you will see the aura activate with a purple swirl. The attached file should then display. The attached file is the book that we created above. It is pretty cool! Now you have two ways of viewing the same book!.
We tried it out this morning in our classroom with my iPad and the pictures! Lots of fun!
As we create other auras this year we will share them to this channel.
You can share the aura by choosing the share button. You can share it via email or twitter.
I have also shared the book on our Twitter site. Our twitter address is @mrsantonsclass.
I have added the twitter feed to the blog on the right hand side! You can see some of our tweets.
Today we tweeted about the Global Read Aloud 2014. We have joined with a large group of teachers worldwide who are completing an author study of the Peter Reynolds stories. This week’s book is I’m Here. We watched the trailer about the book. Then we posted about it using the Global Read Aloud hashtag. You can see our tweet in the twitter feed on the side of the blog. We are hoping to connect with other classrooms in the world and find out what they think about the books too!
Isaak’s Mom has voluteered to help us with our Twitter page. We have started sharing our news on the twitter board and will soon be posting our tweets on our Twitter page on the computer!
Having lots of fun with technology! Definitely something to tweet about!
This is our Augmented Reality Alphabet Book! We think it is very cool! We have been working with the AR Flashcards app a lot this year! This book is a compilation of a lot of work!
The children each choose a letter of the alphabet and then scoured the room looking for items that begin with their letter’s sound.
Once they had a good collection of items we arranged them around the trigger picture for that letter in the AR Flashcards app! Then we opened up the app and took the picture of their collections when the trigger was activated! Very cool!
Then we used the Strip Designer app to import the pictures to create a page for each alphabet letter. We wanted to make an alphabet book to share with the kindergarten class!
We made a variety of pages using these pictures. We made pages with the trigger picture and other pictures using Doodle Buddy as well as taking pictures of items in the classroom or the school! Once the students got started they wanted to make more than one!
Then we decided that we needed the label the objects in our pictures. We used the text function in Strip Designer to add the captions to our pictures.
Then we took all the pages and imported them into another app called Explain Everything!
After we had the book put together with all the pages we had to record our voices on each page. Each student recorded their page!
Once the book was complete we saved it to the camera roll!
Then we watched and listened to our book! Too cool!
I uploaded the book to my channel on Youtube so we can share it with everyone! We think we might have made the very first Augmented Reality alphabet book!
We have been working on life cycles over the last little while. Right now we are learning about frogs! Today, we started making a digital image of the frog’s life cycle using the iPads. I googled frog images and then saved them on the iPad. Of course, the iPad makes it super easy to download images! I had read about it and tried it today and it is so neat! Thank you to MattBGomez.com for the tutorial. He had done it with his kindergarten students using the butterfly cycle and the Story Buddy 2 app. You just pick the image you want, tap on the image, and then hold you finger on it and a popup will appear inviting you to save the image. It saves to the camera roll. Once it is on the camera roll we can do lots of things with it! The possibilities are endless! I showed the children the images I had been able to capture and then we imported them into Strip Designer to make a pictorial image of the frog’s life cycle. Then we added the words! One demonstration and then off they went in pairs!
We have also been able to watch some really neat videos created by the National Geographic about frogs. This one is about the Strawberry Poison Dart frog!
The children have also been exploring the Storybook Maker app and it is amazing what they have produced. I am trying to figure out away to upload a book to the blog so that you can see!
They love using the camera on the iPad to take pictures. Even the caterpillar that was brought for Show and Tell starred in a book!
Last week I discovered a new app that we had not worked with before on the iPads. It is called Strip Designer and lets the students create their own stories in a comic book style. I wish I had found it sooner! We have been having a lot of fun with it. It has a lot of potential for storytelling.
If I had more time with the iPads I can think of some really cool projects we could do! Take a look at what we have managed to do in just a few sessions.
The children have become masters at navigating around to create their masterpieces. They jump from app to app, importing files from the camera roll, recording their voices, etc with ease. Things that I would have really hesitated about introducing don’t even faze them! They find things that they can do and teach me and their classmates as we go! Today we were playing with the Strip Designer app and they were showing me how to do things! “Oh, you just do this, Mrs. Anton!”
The children created these comics with Doodle Buddy, made screen shots of their work, and then imported them from the camera roll into the comic format. They choose a balloon style and added the text to the balloon. Then they can add the Word stamps to accentuate their work. Needless to say a very popular app! If we had more time I think I would like to create multiple page comics.
The first day with this app we used just the pictures that were on the camera roll to tell a story! That worked great too!
Last Friday we did a story map. We read the story The Mitten by Jan Brett and then the children retold the story by creating a story map. They seemed to really enjoy putting it all together. I think they especially liked licking the envelope , sealing it, and then cutting it open at the end to make the secret compartment for the animals to disappear into behind the mitten picture! Hopefully, they shared it with you.
We also worked on Kid Blog during our computer time. We have been running into some glitches adding the pictures so it hasn’t worked as smoothly as I had hoped. Today we managed to get some posts up with pictures! We had some really great help from three of our Big Buddies. Thank you, Courtlynd, Emily, and Karli! We couldn’t have got in done in half an hour without you! You can find the new posts on the Kid Blog page at the top of this page. Please remember that the blogs are password protected. Your child knows their secret password! If you don’t see a new post for today, we probably had some problem with the picture. I am working on it! The children can also post from home if you like! Or you can add a comment! Please take a minute to review the procedure on the Kid Blog page. The posts are previewed by me before they go “live” ! The website sends me an email whenever there is a post or comment that needed to be previewed. I have to go into each one to approve them so it is a bit time consuming…. Thank you for your patience!
I have also added some new links on the WIKI page. There are some more links for Dolch word practise. Take a look! The ever popular Word Bingo is there! The Popcorn words are fun, too!
Mrs. Anton's Class! 