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Friday, 01 November 2002 00:00 |
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KidPix Studio is an art package that has several different functions as well as the basic painting facility. It is easy to install and can be used on more than one computer at a time - although it has a tendency to crash when the CD is not in the CD drive so it is necessary to save your work regularly.
In the literacy hour, the children were learning about story settings, how to tell stories using speech and how to write speech correctly. My aim was to link Kid Pix with the children's literacy work by creating a book.
Lesson 1
I decided to use the Paint a Picture facility first, with the hope that creating the settings of the story would stimulate the children's imaginations and help them think of the text needed to accompany the picture. The children worked in pairs and drew a setting each. It was necessary to teach them how to draw a line across the screen, and using the flood fill key, create sky and land. Working in this way, and using various colours, different pairs made a desert, the sea, some mountains and fields as backgrounds. I also showed the class how to pull down the menu to select a stamp set. They could then put scenery and characters into their pictures. The success criteria for the children were that they had to include a picture of the wizard (from one of the stamp sets) and another of their choice before saving and printing out their picture. The reason for this was that the story itself could then be told through dialogue between the two characters. We also thought that the wizard must be looking for something as he travels through different settings, and decided that he was searching for his twin brother with whom he would have an argument in the first chapter! The title "The Wizard's Quest" was chosen.
Lesson 2
Using Talking First Word (any word processing program would do) the pairs of children wrote their chapter of the story. They had already learned basic word processing skills such as using the shift key for capitals and other forms of punctuation, highlighting text to edit, and saving and printing work therefore the children's success criteria for the task were literacy based and were:
- I must use speech marks at the beginning and end of speech.
- I should begin a new line when a new character speaks but continue on the same line when the same character continues speaking.
- I could edit my writing and replace the word said with a more interesting synonym. This enabled the children to learn how to write speech yet work at an appropriate level. They saved their work before printing out a copy for the book.
A colourful book was made with big enough text for a large group of children to read at the same time. I laminated the picture and text together before constructing the book hoping that this would give it a longer life in the class library!
Lesson 3
Using Kid Pix Studio - slideshow facility we made a moving picture version of "The Wizard's Quest" where the children's pictures were shown on screen one after another- in order. The whole class worked together, first we selected create a new slideshow, then each pair worked (in the same order as the chapters of the story) to create one slide each. An individual slide has three buttons below it. The first enables the user to load a picture that has previously been saved in the paint a picture section. The second selects an interesting screen that is shown between each slide as the slideshow is running. The third allows the user to add sound effects to their slide. There are many different sound effects already loaded onto the program. My class had fun listening to them before choosing an appropriate one to accompany their picture (e.g. a creaking door sound was chosen for the chapter when the wizard visited a haunted house). Once each pair had finished their slide, the whole slideshow could be run.
The next step for myself is to use the slideshow facility once more. On the sound effects screen there is a picture of a microphone, if you click on it, it enables you to add your own sound to the slide. Using this it is possible to create a talking version of your story with either your own or the children's voices. Invaluable in the literacy hour.
The children enjoyed this series of lessons and are looking forward to exploring the other facilities available on Kid Pix Studio. It provided an excellent way to link ICT with the Literacy Hour.
Catherine Speed, Morpeth County First School |
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