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Digital storytelling is fun and engaging!

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Why Use Digital Storytelling in 1st Grade?

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Why Use Digital Storytelling in 1st Grade?

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Digital storytelling is a powerful way to connect young learners to reading, writing, and digital literacy (Kolk). Digital storytelling allows students to write and publish their own stories in a fun and engaging way. Most digital storytelling apps help students stay organized with a storyboard. This simple outline allows young writers to focus on the parts of the story (beginning, middle, and end) as well as developing characters, setting, and the problem or conflict. Adding templates and pictures helps students with their descriptive writing.

Digital storytelling also provides a compelling need to read and listen carefully and to write and edit effectively (Kolk). Furthermore, allowing students to listen to themselves read helps with mastering fluency as they can record themselves as many times as necessary.

The five digital storytelling apps listed are age appropriate for 1st graders and all have a recording feature. Foundational writing skills are critical to the development of successful writers (Graham, Steve & MacArthur) and digital storytelling is an enriching and interactive way to help young writers learn these skills.

References

Graham. Steve, MacArthur, C. A., & Hebert, M. (2019). Best practices in writing instruction (Third Edition ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Kolk, M., & Creative Educator. Digital storytelling in the primary classroom. Retrieved from https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/2018/articles/digital-storytelling-in-the-primary-classroom

Pictello Retrieved May 21, 2025, from https://assistive.co.nz/product/pictello/

Riley, S. (2017). Kid in story book maker. Retrieved May 21, 2025, from https://www.educationalappstore.com/app/kid-in-story-book-maker

Spencer, R. (2024). Puppet pals HD. Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://www.educationalappstore.com/app/puppet-pals-hd

Storyjumper Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://www.storyjumper.com/

Toontastic 3D Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://toontastic-3d.en.softonic.com/android

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Kid in Story Book Maker Review - EducationalAppStore

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Kid in Story Book Maker is a story book creator application that allows you to create and Share Personalised Photo Storybooks. Particularly useful in the creation of Social Stories for young people on the autistic spectrum but also as a lite…

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Pictello is an interactive storytelling app that lets students create virtual storybooks with their own titles, photos, videos, and captions. It helps students develop literacy and social skills while they learn to tell stories.

Pictello helps to support literacy skills by supporting reading with word-by-word text highlighting. It also develops writing and spelling with built-in word prediction and Speak as You Type. Another feature, Wizard Mode, includes auditory instruction and playing back what’s been written.

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Everyone loves to tell fun, engaging, and imaginative stories. Go ahead and make a social story or visual schedule for a child with autism or a slide show of holiday pictures for your friends…

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Kid In Story Book Maker allows students to create and personalize digital storybooks. This app includes templates that allow students to edit pictures, text, and delete or add pictures. It was created to create social stories which are short descriptions of a particular situation, event or activity, which includes specific information about what to expect in that situation and why.

Kid in Story Book Maker has a text and speech feature. This allows students to easily type in text and add speech. Students can tap to hear the speech read more than once per page to listen to what they wrote and edit any necessary changes.

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Kid in Story Book Maker Review - EducationalAppStore

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Kid in Story Book Maker is a story book creator application that allows you to create and Share Personalised Photo Storybooks. Particularly useful in the creation of Social Stories for young people on the autistic spectrum but also as a lite…

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Toontastic 3D is a digital puppet theater app that allows students to narrate and record their own stories while designing their own cartoons. Students can choose from building a short story, classic story or science report.

Toontastic 3D inspires imagination through storytelling and imagination. It has a recording button for students to read and record their stories. After they have listened to what they wrote, students can edit and play back to verify their corrections.

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Create your own fun cartoons with toontastic 3D

Toontastic 3D allows users to draw, animate and narrate cartoons. You can spend hours creating and playing out your very own cartoons. Designed by Google, the free and easy-to-us app is a fun way for kids of all ages to create animated adventures, photo albums, and other imaginative creations.

Features

From robots to pirates, there are plenty of ready-made characters to use on Toontastic 3D. Users can choose from creating a short story, a classic story or a science report. Prompts help users along the way. For a classic story, there are prompts for setup, conflict, challenge, climate and resolution. For a science report, you will be questioned about the hypothesis, experiment, result and conclusion. The app lets you move characters on your screen and tell your own story.

Conclusion

There is plenty of functionality with Toontastic 3D, making it a fun app for even adults. You can also design your own characters with the app?s drawing tools or add yourself using photos. You can also record voices and use built-in songs to create a soundtrack. The app lets you save your creations on your device as a 2D or 3D video to share with friends and family. If you are having trouble coming up with an idea, there is even an 'idea lab' with stories, characters and settings for inspiration.

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Toontastic 3D allows users to draw, animate and narrate cartoons. You can spend hours creating and playing out your very own cartoons. Designed by Google, the free and easy-to-us app is a fun way for kids of all ages to create animated adventures, photo albums, and other imaginative creations.

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Puppet Pals HD is a cartoon creation app. It allows children to develop their creative skills and create their own animations using a variety of themes and characters.

Puppet Pals HD also has a voice and movement recording button. Students are able to record their voices as the puppets of the show. Additionally, students can work on voice projection and expression for the different puppets they create by focusing on how to articulate punctuation marks.

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Puppet Pals is a really fun and engaging cartoon creation app which can be used in many ways with a variety of abilities available for iOS devices (iPad and iPhone).

How Puppet Pals improve the learning experience?

I have used Puppet Pals HD app with children with severe communication difficulties and also high functioning autism. Primarily, I use the app with small groups of children who are reluctant writers, although there is no writing required I would use the app to engage the children by first creating a script to follow on Puppet Pals app. Children's imaginations can really run wild when using the app. From creating a pirate battle to retelling a favourite fairytale or story the possibilities are endless.

Is Puppet Pals app easy to use?

Yes, Puppet Pals is easy to use. The opening screen of Puppet Pals app shows the user three options; 'Saved Shows', 'More Characters' and 'Press to Start'. You can download further actors in 'More Characters'. 'American History has recently been added to a list of 16, with further being added in the near future.

To begin an animation you are given the option to choose up to 8 actors. I really like being able to add your own actors from your photo gallery or by taking a photo. A pinching gesture allows you resize your image and drawing around the face allows you to crop. This will add your character to the in-app gallery. The children find it easy to select the actors they need and importing from the gallery but the pinching to resize can be tricky for children with fine motor difficulties.

The second step is adding the background. Up to five backgrounds can be chosen from a selection of different themes. You can also add your own background from gallery or camera. You are now ready to create your first animation.

As soon as you press the record button everything you do is recorded including all background sound which can cause frustration in larger groups. You manipulate the actors to move on the screen by dragging across the screen and narrating as you do so. The background can be changed also by pulling the rope at the top of the screen. Unfortunately you are unable to stop and edit what you have done, the ability to do this would be a huge bonus. Exporting to iMovie is one way of overcoming this and useful to make final edits but in-app editing would be a more practical option. Once the animation is created it can be exported to the video gallery and from there it can be shared further.

Why we love Puppet Pals app

Puppet Pals HD allows you to create an endless array of animations and can be used in most lessons. The app can really help to develop children's imagination skills as well as teaching them how to sequence, explore narrative, character, plot, voice projection, expression and unleash their creative skills. The only real limitation is the users imagination. Puppet Pals app is easily used by children and really puts fun in learning. Looking forward to more themes and characters in the future. Well done!

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Download Puppet Pals - Free | Educational App Store

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Puppet Pals is a really fun and engaging cartoon creation app which can be used in many ways with a variety of abilities available for iOS devices (iPad and iPhone). I have used Puppet Pals HD app with children with severe communication difficulties and also high functioning autism.

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Storyjumper allows students to tell a story in multimedia format and then publish it creating their very own hardcover book. Students can type their story in the Storyjumper app and design their own pictures for each page using templates, adding characters and objects or uploading personal photos.

Storyjumper also has a voice narration feature that allows students to record themselves reading each page. Students can play back the recording to listen to themselves and check their fluency and to correct any spelling mistakes. Finished books can be uploaded in Storyjumper for students around the world to read and listen to.

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StoryJumper: #1 rated site for creating story books

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Easiest way to create, narrate, and publish your own hardcover and paperback books. Read and listen to books from our worldwide community.