As I looked through the Web 2.0 tools and websites, I found myself drawn to two different websites. Both websites allowed the user to create a book. The first website, Tikatok allows the user to use illustrations created by the user (or in this case the user’s students) to illustrate a book. I found this website to have limitless possibilities. As a kindergarten teacher we spend time each day writing about our “small moments”. Moments in our lives that we have experienced. We use the small moments to teach the kids to write about what we know. It’s difficult enough to get them comfortable with writing, but to have them have to choose a topic is very frustrating for a beginning writer. Just last week, we created a class book on Halloween safety, using ideas we generated during a brainstorming session. Tikatok would be a fantastic tool to actually publish our class book. For a small fee, just $2.99 for a downloadable ebook, we could turn our writings into books to share with each other. It is possible to turn class writings into hard cover books as well. The second site I looked at, storybird.com was another site dedicated to creating books. However, this site provided illustrations. This would be a great activity to do with the class on the Promethean board (smart board). The pictures are a great starting place for a brainstorming session to create a short story to match the illustrations. During our reading lessons we always take a picture walk of the books we read together, but also as part of something else we do instead of centers, I teach my students to read the pictures of a book. For the students who can’t read yet, reading the pictures really empowers them. This would be something that every student would be able to contribute to.
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