Tonight in class we were introduced to a new storytelling tool, Storybird. This website encourages storytelling by providing illustrations for adults and students alike to use to develop ideas to write a story. Liz, Amanda and I collaborated to explore this website and created a story inspired by the If you give a mouse a cookie series, called "If you give Hedgie an Apple." Check out our first try...
We spent some time looking through pictures to try and find inspiration for our story. We discovered that you have to use pictures all by the same illustrator throughout your story. We had a tricky time trying to figure out how to add and save pages and got a little frustrated with trying to place the images on a page. Once we figured it out and got our story going, we wrote it pretty quickly. I don't think the website is user friendly enough to use with my students, but I can see using it to inspire my students writing. I could begin a story, then ask students to add a page or write the ending in their writer's notebooks.
Jenn, for the age group you work with, using the program to create and find stories for read-alouds and discussions would work well. If you had a story written and wanted students to help you find an illustration for a final page that also might work. If you have time to use the Explore option, and put in your grade level, you might find stories for read-alouds. The illustrations should appeal to young learners once you find stories that are age appropriate. It would also be fun for you to create a story that your students can relate to in some way, perhaps one that you write about an event that has happened in the classroom or reinforces a skill being taught, such as "being nice to others."
ReplyDeleteI agree with Judy that it might be a good site to use to find and share stories with your students. I love your idea of having students complete stories using this website. I wonder if you could even print off some pictures and have students create their own story on paper and then scan those into an Animoto video? There's so much you can do online that I never knew about...
ReplyDeleteJenn, I love how you link to Amanda and Liz's blogs as a means of connecting your readers to other educational resources. I thought about doing that last week, but never followed through. I also love the story the three of you wrote! What a great activity for students!
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