Writing and Podcasting

Grade Level: 2-5

Objective: Students will work on their creative writing and speaking skills

Time: Depending on your classroom this lesson can go for the whole week or can be just a few days. My time frame in the lesson is just a starting point and can be increased or decreased.

Materials: Paper, pencils, pictures, computers, microphones, GarageBand

Go out and find about 5 to 6 pictures and mount them on something sturdy so they can stand on the table and been seen by the students. If you do not have your classroom set up into groups, try and make groups of 4 or 5 students and then place one picture on each table group. The pictures do not have to go together or have a theme, they can if you wish, but sometimes it's more fun if they don't.
When each group has a picture, some paper, and a pencil, then the lesson can start.
>"Looking at the picture you have on your table, I want you to come up with some sort of story that goes with that picture. The only thing I ask is that you just write for the whole time. After 15 mins I will stop you, and you will move your picture to the next group. Then I want you to continue your story with the new picture." (If it helps to assign the groups numbers for this project you can do that or just have them pass it to their right or left)
"Ready, start writing"

Once the students have been writing for 15 mins about one picture, have them swap pictures. Go through this till the students have seen and written about every picture. Switching pictures might be hard for some students, and if necessary these students could just write short stories about each picture if they are having trouble connecting the different pictures together to make one story.

The next step, of course, is to have the students go through and edit their stories; making sure that they make sense. Once this is done they can start working on making their podcast.

To make a podcast, open up GarageBand and click on Podcast. Then the students can name it their story title or their name and save it to where ever they normally do (desktop, jump drive, file server, grade folder, etc)
Then, in a more quiet area, which can either be the hallway, an empty room near the classroom, or a corner of the room, the students click record and start reading their story. After they are done, they can listen to it and make sure they have not made any mistakes, and then they can send it to iTunes. (Click on Share up in the menu bar, and then Send Podcast to iTunes. The format will want to be in MP3 unless they put a picture with it then use the AAC Encoder) Pictures can be pulled from iPhoto, so students can either take pictures with a digital camera and upload them to iPhoto to go with their story, or they can use a program such as Kid Pix 3X and export the pictures to iPhoto that they make.


If you work at an Immersion School, the older students could translate their story and it could be podcasted in both languages.