Our Favorite Things

The end of the year means taking a look back and reflecting on what happened throughout the months in a grade level. It’s a time of “I love this grade” and “This is my very favorite year.”

I asked the second graders to brainstorm some of the activities of their year.

  • Reading the Boxcar Children and Little House in the Big Woods
  • The Heritage project and international food tasting
  • Scientist of the Day
  • Math
  • Co-curricular subjects: Computer, Spanish, Chinese, Library, Art, and Music
  • And of course . . . who can omit recess or P.E.??

The next step was to illustrate their favorite (or in some cases, favorites) activity from their second grade year. For us, Microsoft’s Paint programĀ is a good drawing tool. We use it quite a bit and the students are very comfortable with it.

The next step was to write a script in Microsoft Word that would be used for recording in the Book Creator app. A few students balked at that, saying they could remember what to say without writing it down. However, I told them that even pros write down what they’re going to say and we would take lessons from them! (Besides, it was a good way to practice word processing skills!)

Since we were making a class book, I pulled in all the pictures to the Book Creator app (uploaded the drawings to my Picasa web album account and saved them to Photos) on my iPad. Then the students recorded their narration. I really like the ability to bring in short video clips to Book Creator so we added a brief whole-class shot.

The result is an ePub book that can be read in the iBooks app on any iOS device. And now, with the latest version of Book Creator, the ebook can also be read on any computer by using the Google Chrome browser and the Readium app. (For instructions, see the post, Book Creator and the Readium Chrome Web App.)

  • If you are on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, etc) and you have iBooks installed, tap on a link below.
  • Tap on the download button.
  • Then download to iBooks

Mrs. Cooper’s Class: Our Favorite Things

Mrs. Garcia’s Class: Our Favorite Things

Mrs. Shapard’s Class: Our Favorite Things

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