Weekly Tech-y News October 29th-November 2nd

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Weekly Tech-y News October 22-26th

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Weekly Tech-y News October 30-November 3

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Happy Halloween!

Weekly Tech-y News October 23-27, 2017

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Spooky Good Costume Collages!

Fall is such a busy and fun time of year, and I know my kindergartners were always super motivated to learn when I could somehow incorporate one of their favorite holidays - Halloween - into my lessons! They love the excitement of Halloween and it helps them to become engaged in so many learning activities. Using the app PicCollage Kids is a fantastic and easy way to let your students illustrate their Halloween costumes and share with the class, and this simple activity could be tied to many different concepts in your classroom.


To make the collages, have students open PicCollage and use the photo tool to take a  selfie. All you want in the collage is their face, so they should then double tap their selfie and carefully use the clip tool to trim around the image so they only have their face. Pinch and drag the image so it’s the right size and positioned above the middle of the collage (they need lots of room to draw their costumes)!

Next, have them use the doodle tool to draw their costume. Remind them to use different colors and utilize the tool that allows them to change the thickness of the drawing tool to add detail and color in areas. Let them have fun and be creative!

After their costumes are drawn, let them set the background. I let the first graders choose patterns, but you may want them to choose a solid color (like black) and use the doodle tool, stickers or web search to add some fun Halloween details in the background.

Next, I had them add text. The first graders I worked with simply added a label to tell about their costume. If this is the basis of a writing project for you, perhaps you want them to add more text here to tell a “how to” story about trick or treating, or tell a spooky Halloween story. This could even be a math project - think about having them add details like bats in the sky, pieces of candy, etc and then creating story problems to share with their friends.

The last detail I let these first graders add is 2 stickers from the fall sticker collection (we could download these free from the PicCollage Kids app - not sure about regular PicCollage). They loved adding this detail, but I also wanted to limit it so they didn’t fill their entire screen with stickers!

When students were finished, we saved these collages to the iPads and shared on Seesaw. Many students added their voice to Seesaw, to explain their costumes. They absolutely loved viewing each other’s work and sharing their fun costume ideas! What learning activity could you incorporate into your classroom, using this simple illustration as the basis? Share with us in the comments!

Here are some awesome examples from Mrs. Erickson’s first graders!