Kid Pix Projects
For my next series of assignments, I would like my students to work with the "Kid Pix" computer program. This is a program that we have on our computers at school and that some students have explored. It has many capabilities. I would like my students to use the slideshow feature. Kid Pix is compatible with the Apple program iTunes which is also on our computers. This compatibility will allow the students to integrate music into their assignments.
Prior to either of the projects, the students need to be comfortable making pictures, adding text to pictures, saving pictures, and retrieving their saved pictures. This will take several lab experiences.
My first assignment will be an extension of writing. In our writing curriculum, our students work on writing personal narratives made up of a series of "moments." I would like the students to convert one of these stories into a slideshow. To prepare for the musical component of this assignment, I will share several movements from Peer Gynt my Edvard Greig. My intention is to choose movements that offer very different moods.
The students will start their planning on paper by sketching a story board to outline what their pictures will look like once they get on the computer. Part of the story sketch will be a choice of a song or songs from Peer Gynt to help the audience understand the student's story.
Once students have planned their story, they will work on Kid Pix to create a series of slides that use music, text, and pictures to tell their personal narrative. Ultimately, I would like the students to present their stories to the class. Since there are only a few songs to choose from, the students will be using the same songs to convey different emotions depending on the content of their stories. I would like to use this lesson as an opportunity to discuss how the stories impacted the audience's understanding of the music.
My second assignment will be linked to a district wide anti-bullying project. For this project, students typically create a poster encouraging anti-bullying behavior. I will be modifying this project by having the students work in groups to use kid pix to create an anti-bullying commercial. For this project, the students will have a larger list of songs to choose from and we will not preview them as a class. I will provide songs, but I will also get songs that students request for their projects.
Similar to the previous assignment, the students will sketch a storyboard of their commercial before moving to the computer lab. Again, students will share their commercials with the class. As a class, we will talk about the tone the music set for the various commercials. For example, some music will be more positive than other music. How does that impact our understanding of the message in the commercial?
Comments
Angela,
I really like these two assignments you crafted! They both were multidimensional, offering opportunities for kids to do critical and creative thinking, gain skills utilizing technology and practice their writing and artistic skills. During our group chats you expressed the desire to utilize technology and music but expressed concern of how to do that with maintaining the requirements of the curriculum. With these assignments it appears you were creative in finding a way to do both, well done! I hope you have an opportunity to try these out with your students.
Posted by: Nicole | June 26, 2009 9:15 PM
Hi Angela,
Great lessons! I think the use of technology in these lessons is really appropriate and think that students would really get into this type of lesson. Also, I like your idea of using music that creates different moods. I did a similar thing (without the technological aspect) with a class of 3rd graders and their perceptivity really surprised me. We were working with poetry and I wanted them to get the idea of mood/tone, so we started with music as an example and the students got really involved and their ideas and rationales really impressed me.
Likewise, I think the anti-bullying activity sounds really interesting. I think students would jump at the opportunity to make a commercial and here, again, picking music with the correct mood/tone/message is an important piece of the puzzle. It’s a great way to incorporate music into a district-wide project that might otherwise seem disconnected and random.
Posted by: Leah Laurent | June 26, 2009 11:54 PM
Hi Angela,
I liked how thorough you are with your lesson plans. I did not think of the fact that students may not know how to save and retrieve saved work, etc... Especially as they are just beginning to use computers and this program in particular. The skills that your students will learn from this lesson will undoubtedly carry them through the rest of their computer-using lives as you are teaching them fundamentals to this process.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 28, 2009 9:32 PM