Dear Santa

I visited several classrooms today and used the app Make a Scene: Christmas for a variety of projects. The kids absolutely loved this app, and worked so hard on the learning activities!  The app is $2.99 - you can view it in iTunes by clicking the image below.

In a couple first grade classrooms, we used the app to create illustrations for some ebooks about Christmas.  We introduced the Christmas app, and asked the students to create 3 illustrations; 1 for the book cover and 2 that they could write sentences about.  We showed students how to save the illustrations to their camera rolls by clicking the three lines (we like to call these the "Liney Lines" in 2nd grade) in the upper lefthand corner to open the settings, then clicking "snapshot".

Then,  they opened the app Book Creator to begin making the books. When the books are finished, I will upload some examples.  Using Book Creator, students can add a title and type sentences to go with each of their illustrations.  When they are done with their books, they can add audio of themselves reading the words they wrote.  After the audio is added, students can export the book as an ePub for reading in iBooks, or export as a video and post to their Seesaw learning journals.  Super cool!

For more info on Book Creator, you can check some of my previous posts (search for "book creator") or you can view a tutorial by clicking here.

Another project idea that turned out really cool was an app smash of Make a Scene: Christmas and Tellagami.  Tellagami is a free app that allows students to create an avatar that will talk and share information and student learning.  Students love the creativity of customizing the avatar, and it's fun for them to share information by making the avatar "talk".  The paid Edu version is $4.99 and gives more customization options, plus it allows students to type the text they would like the avatar to say (instead of record using the microphone).

In Mrs. Chase's 2nd grade, we began by using the Make a Scene: Christmas app to create a background for the Tellagami.  They created a fun Christmas scene, and then saved to the camera roll on the iPad.  

Next, they opened the app Tellagami and I gave them a quick "how to" for customizing their avatars, or "gamis".  You can see the options (character, emotion, background) in the photo below.  In the background area, they are able to upload a photo from the camera roll of the iPad, so the 2nd graders uploaded the Christmas backgrounds they had created.  

They then returned to the home screen by clicking "back" and clicked on "message" to record what they would like for Christmas.  

When they finished, they clicked "share" and then "save" - Tellagami creates a short video that is then saved to the camera roll of the iPad.  This 2nd grade class uses Seesaw for digital portfolios, so the students were able to then login to their Seesaw accounts and upload the Tellagami videos using "camera roll" from Seesaw.  Students were asked to use the text feature on Seesaw to type what they would like for Christmas.

The students did an awesome job on this project, and the end result was so great!  Here is one example - let me know if you have questions or would like help getting started doing this project in your own classroom!