Using ChatterKids App to Retell Stories

I found this awesome idea on Jen Jones' blog, Hello Literacy, and I absolutely loved it.  She wrote about using ChatterKids to have students retell stories they have read.  Using the super fun (and free!) ChatterKids app, students can make characters from the book "talk" to retell the story, make text to self connections, make predictions, etc.

In Mrs. Bishop's kindergarten, we decided to use books from the Lead 21 curriculum, because we knew she would have multiple copies of these books.  Once students become familiar with this process, they could use books from their book boxes or the reading center.  We chose one of my favorites, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems.  I read the students the story, but you could also use this fun video:

Once we read the story, we discussed some of the ways the Pigeon tried to persuade us to let him drive the bus.  I then showed the kids how to use ChatterKids to make the Pigeon talk, and share one of the things the Pigeon did in the story.  Using ChatterKids is really super easy.  Kids take a picture, draw a line where they want it to talk, and record their voice.

They can customize it with stickers and text, then press the little iPad icon to save it to their camera roll.  From here, it can easily be uploaded to Seesaw or Kidblog to save and share with others.  Here are some examples from Mrs. Bishop's awesome kindergartners!  You'll notice some did an awesome job of adding text to their ChatterKids!