Starting Out with the Juniors

After going to Navcon2k4 in Cristchurch I decided that the best approach was to start in a limited way and gradually expand and learn as I go. With the juniors the focus was to be on literacy and we decided to produce a book about our new road. ( I asked the question and they seemed keen would be a more accurate description.) This was based around i-photo on an i-Mac.

After one quick demonstration they were easily opening the program and share writing the story by themselves. The problem I had was in forcing myself to get out of the way and let them get on with it . Once underway they could be fully absorbed for twentyfive-thirty minutes. The team building process seemed to involve little arguements over the text and whose turn it was to type. They quickly sorted this out and sometimes one would wander off and check out the other things happening in the class. Eventually they would wander back. At the end of the first session I reviewed the days work and looked at a couple of errors. I discovered that it was better to do this at the start of the next session. The kids were fresher and were more likely to make changes.They shared the story with the seniors to make sure that they understood it and it was then printed off ready for binding.
They are now comfortable with the basic i-Photo program, demonstrated good sequencing skills with both text and photos, used a shared approach to spelling, selected appropriate photos from the library and added a text that complimented the photos. Main lessons for me. They learn the basic skills with programs very quickly and- let them make mistakes - then use the mistakes as teaching points.