Kindergarten Animal Research Projects

Kindergarten students all across our District have been busy creating narrated pieces of writing.  Most often I used VoiceThread as a way to record and share their work. Below is an example of one class's animal research:



Feel free to leave a comment on the VoiceThread if you see a piece you particularly like!

Reading Records

Something we started doing last year was recording student's reading several times throughout the year.  This provides a record of student learning, especially their fluency. I use VoiceThread to do this. I use the website to upload the pictures and I use the iPad app to record their voices.  I love the app for recording!  It is so much easier than the website, in my opinion. 

Here are a few examples:

*Note, rarely does a child get through an entire book.  They read until I tell them to stop, which is approximately one minute.

So what are the logistics of this? 

Things I do:

Create the covers (I use PowerPoint and save as a JPEG)

Upload the pictures

Record the students

Help teachers embed these where they would like them (blog, website, etc.)

What teachers do: 

Prepare the readers

Take a photo of each child each time

Notify parents the videos have been posted

Teach the kids!

What students do:

Read! 

Learn! 

View their recordings to hear themselves

What parents do:

Watch and comment! (hopefully)

I really love this project and so do the classroom teachers.  It is exciting to watch the fluency and reading ability of students growing!  When students view their Reading Records near the end of the year, they are sometimes in disbelief that the first recording is them!