Students Publish their first eBooks!

We have been working on creating stories during Writing Workshop.  The students have been learning the writing process (We call it the "Writing Life Cycle).  Students wrote their rough drafts in their writing notebooks, peer edited in red pen, edited with an adult, then went to publish using the iPad.  We're working on striking a balance with the iPad and traditional writing, since the students are only seven and eight years old, and they are still working on fine motor skills.

The students have been working on creating stories in BookWriter using the photo, text, and voice record tools.  They made their own drawings using DrawingPad (and some opted to draw pictures by hand and just take photos of their pictures using the Camera App) and imported them to each page. 

The students created Halloween stories, and worked on creating a title page, a story with a beginning, middle, and end, and created and About the Author page.  Each eBook has a photo of the author, illustrations, and text that is voice recorded.  (We have a student who is blind, so, the voice record piece is essential so he can hear the stories his classmates created.)  A hidden "bonus" of the voice record feature is that it forces the class to work quietly (we do recordings in special areas throughout the classroom as well as the hallway) and helps the students to work on their fluency.  (Public speaking is one of the greatest fears in America, not spiders (mine), so, hopefully this helps ease that fear!)

Enjoy their eBooks!  The students are becoming addicted to writing-- they are publishing machines!  Even today, the students came in and worked on their stories for Morning Work before our 9:15am specials.  It was amazing to see the students so engaged!