Thursday, February 9, 2017

Design Time!


The production of the 2016-2017 Yearbook is underway! Seventh and eighth grade yearbook elective students use online software to design each page making sure that borders, backgrounds, photographs, headlines, captions and clip art capture readers attention and tell the story of our year together. All copy is spell-checked and checked for accuracy. Students learn the importance of collaboration and teamwork as they learn critical technical skills to create a product that celebrates community and captures the school's history. This is the 7th year that students have produced a school yearbook.

Storyboarding in Media

Media Elective students have been learning to storyboard. A storyboard organizes images and words in a sequence for the purpose of creating an animation or video. We can also use our storyboards to create our own mini-graphic stories. We used online software StoryboardThat to create mini-scenes and shared them with a visiting third grade class during out annual book fair.

Our digital storytelling did not stop there. We brainstormed a number of different ways we could use the software to support further study; creating public service announcements, telling a true life story, storyboarding an existing story book or making an advertisement for a product.  The students decided they would like to make advertisements for products. In the photo, students storyboarded a Burger King Ad - more to come on having it your way!







The Lion and The Mouse




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The Lion and The Mouse is one of the most popular of Aesop's Fables. A fable is a short story that features animals that learn a lesson. We read the beautiful award winning wordless version by Jerry Pinkney. As a student, Jerry Pinkney struggled with dyslexia. He is one of our favorite author/illustrators at OG. Take a closer look at his work on his website.

My K1 students also had time to make their own lion and mouse puppets that they will bring home during February break. Be sure to schedule time for their "puppet show." I hope you enjoy their show!



Poor Kitten!

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Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes quickly becomes a favorite of my students. We discuss that tricky letter K - it sounds a bit like "C"ookie and of course a Cat is a big Kitten!!! What's going on? They laugh and start comparing "c" words and "k" words but the real confusion comes in our story when kitten thinks the moon is a big bowl of milk just waiting for her. Kitten is little and is still learning about the world. See more about this author and his other great books on his website . Watch an interview with the author and the story with your child below.