•Making a Book Using
the Digital Camera
•Millie’s Deck
•Calendar Concepts and
Organizing Data
•Single Switch
•Urban Environments
•Home-School Connections
•Observation Checklist to Track Children’s Work
•Make-a-Bug Game
•Chart Showing Individual Characteristics
•Making Weather Stations
•Working With Shapes
•Making a Special Person Card
•Sorting Game
•Awareness of Stereotypes
•Screen Saver
•I'm Me, I'm Special: An Electronic Portfolio
•Yo Hablo Espanol, I Speak English: Learning Together at the Computer

 

 

Making a book using the digital camera

Type of Submission:

This idea is a submission for:
X A curriculum idea
__Cool things to do
__A special issue
Age group for whom this activity is appropriate:
3-5 year olds
 
Brief description of activity:
On a recent field trip, I took along a camera and took pictures throughout the day that showed what we saw and did, including getting on the bus in the morning and coming back to the center later in the day. Later in the week, the kids and I made a book of our trip on the computer.
What I did to set this up and how I followed through:
Before the trip, we talked about what we would see. I told the kids that we would make a book of our trip. Throughout the day, I had them help me choose what pictures to take that would tell a complete story of our trip.
Materials used:
Digital camera, or a regular camera and scanner, or laminate pictures
Word (or any word processing program) to create the pictures and text and then print out the book..

What the children had to do and what I wanted them to learn:
  • I used a digital camera so we printed out each picture. We spread out all the pictures and talked about we did first, next, etc. In other words, I helped them order the pictures in a sequence.
  • In a group meeting, I asked the children to dictate a sentence or two about each picture. I typed their words into my Word program. Later I inserted the correct pictures to make each page.
  • I also asked each child to pick a favorite picture and to tell me what he or she liked about that part of the trip. So, for each picture I had something that the group said and then, "This is Katy’s favorite picture. She liked the penguins at the aquarium."
  • It was fun for the kids that we could print out a group book and we could also print out individual pages for each child to take home
Images of the Activity:
   
Background: How I got the idea:
We often make books of our activities. I also work a lot on helping them learn about sequence. Using the camera and computer seemed like a good way to accomplish these goals.
Analysis: How the kids and/or parents responded:

This was a very successful activity. The kids loved remembering the trip and telling both the group story of the trip and their individual stories of what they most enjoyed. I’ve noticed that the books we made are among the most popular choices on our bookshelves.
Extension

You could use the camera and book creation for many different projects in the room. For example, you could document the sequence of a cooking activity or even the sequence of the classroom day and use pictures to tell the story of the classroom schedule.
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