I so enjoy sharing what our teachers do with technology and, although I’m a bit late in posting this, it’s too good NOT to share!

Before the winter holidays, Mrs. Cooper, one of our second grade teachers, wanted to build on her lesson of “Holiday Traditions Around the World.” Each year she reads the book, The Legend of the Poinsettia, by Tomie dePaola. The class discusses traditions of Las Posados in Mexico but this year she took it a step further. During the rereading of the book, Mrs. Cooper asked her students to draw a scene or a picture that came to mind as they were inspired by the simple gift that Lucida was able to give to the Baby Jesus in lieu of the beautiful blanket she intended to give.

Mrs. Cooper chose to have the students do this on the iPads.  Each student picked one of the drawing apps (Drawing Box, Art Set, or Color Box HD) and worked on their drawing as they listened to the story. When the drawings were complete, the students emailed the illustration to me (new experience and they did extremely well!).

The next step was to write a statement about the meaning of a “gift from the heart” – this was done in their journals.

I pulled everything together in the Book Creator app and then had the students record their voice as they read their statement. Book Creator is a wonderfully easy, yet powerful way to make an ebook to share with parents. This was a class book made on a single iPad but it’s easy enough for students to do on their own!

Here is a short video showing how Mrs. Cooper and her students went through the bookmaking process.

The Making of an eBook from Trinity Valley School on Vimeo.

This was a fun and meaningful way to share student work with parents. It took a bit longer than planned – but only because the days before a long holiday are extremely busy! We weren’t able to finish the book till January but that’s alright! The students enjoyed the project and are thrilled that they have a book that they can read on their iOS devices.

Link to Mrs. Cooper’s class book: The Book Creator app only allows you to open the ePub book on an iOS device that has the iBooks app (i.e. iPad, iPhone, iTouch); not on a PC. Downloading instructions are below the book link. We hope you enjoy their book!

Mrs. Cooper’s Class Book: Gifts of the Heart

Directions to download to your iOS device:

• You will need the iBooks app installed on your iOS device.
• Click on the book link above.
• Tap on the download button.
• Choose Open in iBooks
• The book is now in iBooks.

If you do not have an iOS device, click below for the PDF version. This is the print copy of the ebook. You will not be able to hear the recordings or view the video from this but you will be able to read the story.
Gifts of the Heart pdf