Our Families-a 1st grade photo book

Objective: Each child will contribute one page (front and back) to a classroom photo book using photos taken at home. Students will then write about what/whom they photographed on the computer.
Materials:
1) 2 digital cameras
These cameras will be rotated among the students so that they can take 5-10 pictures of their families at home
2) Physical photobooks created online at Shutterfly.com

The first unit of our current reading program is Identity Awareness. Students will engage in classroom sharing sessions about the members of their families. This is a good opportunity for the students to clarify the differences between vocabulary such as uncles, aunts, cousins and to explore the wide variety of cultural names for grandparents. Students will then draw a pictures of the family members currently living in their homes.

Two cameras will be sent home each week so that 6 students can take 5-10 pictures of their family members. A documentation sheet will be sent as well so that parents can help me identify the people in the pictures.

When the cameras are returned I will download the pictures onto my classroom computer and then upload the photos to my account at Shutterfly.com

Since there are 22 students in my classroom I anticipate that the photography part of this project will take approximately 4 weeks.

Working with each individual child, a family page will be created online for that child. Children will either dictate to me who is in each picture or they will write it themselves and I will type their dialog on their individual pages.