Tacky Wales: iTool for Literacy

If you follow my blog, you will know that Ms. Carnazzo has quite the iLesson toolkit (e.g short vowel sounds with Songify, Math fact families with Talking Tom and friends, classifying motion with iCardSort, and integrating Math and literacy using Puppet Pals Director’s Pass) for utilizing one iPad in her elementary classroom.

 
Her latest project utilized the paid app Tacky Wales: Create Your Own Story (thanks to a donation from the app developer for the promo code). In Language Arts, Ms. Carnazzos’ class has been working on parts of speech (mainly nouns and a sprinkling of verbs and adjectives).

 
Ms. Carnazzo’s model for executing this iLesson is well thought out and flawlessly planned:

1. Setting the Stage: Before tackling the Tacky Wales project, students worked in collaborative groups to generate lists of words that fit into these categories (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives) as a reference.
   
2. Modeling  & Guided Practice: She did one story with the whole class as an intro.
3. Preview & Preselect Content: She then gave students a list of appropriate stories (topic and age-appropriate for second graders as some titles may be more adult-oriented) to choose from.
4. Student Input: They voted and chose a title for their group.
5. Facilitating  Student Efforts: Donette Sis (an Instructional Technology Coordinator) and Jennifer Heine (an Instructional Technology Specialist) came to the class with their iPads to help work with the small groups in completing their selected story. Teachers helped groups choose and input their words into the story framework.
6. Extensions & Engagement: After completing and reading/enjoying the original story, students shook the iPad to Spoonerize (note: be aware that some spoonerisms may not be age-appropriate – consider re-shaking if you encounter this issue)…which of course they found quite hilarious!
7. Presentation & Public Speaking: The next day students shared all their stories with the whole class.
   
8. Cross-curricular Integration: Each group illustrated the setting of their own story. The importance of the story element, setting, is an integral focus for Reading.

Thanks Tacky Wales for featuring  Ms. Carnazzo’s lesson on your site!

FREEBIES and GOODIES OH MY!

TechChef4u now offers a Doc Locker full of freebies and goodies that can be used in the classroom. Lots of resources and templates can be found in the Creatively Productive Digital Downloads Doc Locker. Just sign up using the form below and you will receive an email shortly with a secret link to the site and password to nab your freebies.