Digital Storytelling in Kindergarten

Digital storytelling is using computer-based tools to tell stories. After listening to Jan Brett's story The Gingerbread Baby, kindergarten students created their own Gingerbread Baby adventure stories. Each student dictated one sentence for the story, building upon the previous student's page. Then, they used Early Learning Toolkit to illustrate the story. Finally, they recorded themselves reading their page using the Web 2.0 tool Voice Thread. Every child smiled as they listened to themselves, making all the work that goes into this project well worth it!

The Gingerbread Baby Goes to the Beach
by Mrs. Overton's and Mr. Thompson's Kindergarten Class


The Gingerbread Baby Goes to the Zoo
by Mrs. Vigue's and Mrs. Acosta's Kindergarten Class


The Gingebread Baby Visits the Candy Store
by Mrs. Minke's and Mr. Hutton's Kindergarten Class

Olympic Podcasts in 4th Grade

Fourth graders will finish working on their Olympic podcasts this week. A podcast is an audio broadcast that has been converted to an audio file format (i.e. MP3) for playback on a computer or digital music player. Podcasts are mostly verbal but can contain music, images, and video. After conducting research and writing scripts, students will record themselves in the program GarageBand. They will learn how to use different tracks to add voices, music, and sounds, split audio clips, and learn how to duck music (lower music when voices are present). The podcasts will be published to Charger Radio.

Learning About Australia

Last week, second graders took an online tour of Australia in the computer lab. Practicing the skill of reading for information, students read an online storybook while answering comprehension questions. Students will further their study this week as they work with partners to learn about animals from Australia and New Zealand. Using a Venn diagram, students will compare and contrast two different animals.

Kindergarten Students Learn About Graphing

Kindergarten students were introduced to the program The Graph Club during their last two visits to the computer lab. After sorting and counting objects such as pattern blocks and pennies/nickels, students use a table to record the number of each object to create a graph. Students learned about bar, circle, line, and picture graphs. They also used the program’s notebook tool to write about their observations.