Using Go Animate in the Classroom

My preparations for the new school year continue with my latest effort... an animated writing prompt for my Grade 7s. As you may have read in my previous posts, I teach French Immersion so I'm always looking for new things that I can use that let me incorporate the French language into my classroom. I decided to play with a website called GoAnimate.

What I discovered was an easy to use, free website that allows me to insert characters, bacgrounds and objects into scenes and then animate their movements using a simple list of posibilities. I inserted their own music and some text. Then, voila, my first short animated feature!

For my first attempt, I created a writing prompt that would allow my students to create their own animated productions. The premise is simple; two students named Rosie and Jean are enjoying their last week of holidays before school starts and they want to experience one last adventure. What will this adventure be? They are asking the Grade 7s at Wilfrid Walker to help them decide what to do with their last week of freedom. Here is the short animation I created:

GoAnimate.com: Les aventures de Jean et Rosie à Wilfrid Walker by bobiashj


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

I hope they enjoy this activity. I can't wait to see what they come up with! My hope is that this is a successful writing activity that the students will want to revisit during the year to produce more adventures for "Jean and Rosie". I will post the results so stay tuned!

Creating On-line Jigsaw puzzles with pictures

I have been working on material for the beginning of the school year and decided to create a "Where did Mme Bobiash go this summer?" activity so students can guess where I travelled based on the landmarks I am photographed with in the puzzle. This is a pretty neat tool that I will be using with my SMART Board in September. The website I used was Jigsaw Planet. Have fun making your own puzzles!

Here's the first one I made. It is pretty easy with only 16 pieces. You can make them as easy or as difficult as you want!