My First Day of School

This is lesson is a digital storytelling lesson for a first-grade class. For the assignment, students will create a digital story about their first day of school. As part of their pre-planning, the students will create story tables. They will draw several pictures and write the sentences that they want to put with their project. Prompts will be provided to the students to help their writing. For example: "Before school I felt...", "I thought my teacher would be..." The students will have two options when creating their story: they could narrate their story or they can type it. The students will use the online software ZooBurst to create their story. The goal of this project is to provide students with an opportunity to articulate their feelings about starting school and, hopefully, find common ground with their classmates. The student's final products will be shared with the class.

The model project for this lesson was created with help of elementary school students. At first, I was concerned that they would have trouble navigating the website but they quickly learned how to move objects around the page and add pages to create the book. Through the drawing tool, students are able to draw their own images; however, the students became very frustrated using the tool with the mouse. To implement this lesson in the future, I would have the students draw pictures beforehand or allow them to upload hand-drawn images. Creating the model lesson was manageable with two students but an aid would be needed to do a project of this size with an entire class. 

State Standards

This lesson meets the following Pennsylvania First Grade Standards:

AL 2 Demonstrate engagement and persistence

1 - Show persistence in ability to complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects and experiences

9.1 Production, Performance and Exhibition of Dance, Music, Theatre & Visual Arts

L -  Recognize color, shape, line, texture, size/relationship (proportion/ scale) and 

pattern (repetition) in visual art

PS 1 Develop Self-Concept

A - Is aware of self and one’s own preferences, strengths and challenges

C - Know and state independent thoughts and feelings

1.8 Research

A - Use a systematic process for the collection, processing and presentation of information

3.7 Technological devices

D - Use basic computer software

1.5 -Quality of Writing

-Progress through the stages of the writing process (e.g., prewriting, drafting, revising,

editing and publishing)

-Write clear and coherent sentences and 

paragraphs that develop a central idea

ISTE Standards

This lesson meets the following NETS∙S:

1b - Students create original works as a means of personal or group expression

2b - Students locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media

2c - Students evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks

5b - Students exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity

6b - Students select and use applications effectively and productively

Rubric:
The following rubric will be used to asses student work:

Here is a model story for this project

References:
This story is based on a true story by Alexander Johnson
Pictures were drawn by 8-year-olds Alexander Johnson & Danielle Whitley

This digital story was made with ZooBurst

NETS∙S were provided by ISTE

State Standards provided by PA Keys