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Students create a phonics book using Book Creator. With teacher assistance in small groups, students create a book using the themes explored in the Wilson Fundations phonics curriculum during Tier 1 instructional time. Students create a page for each of the vowel sounds including an illustration of the letter name/sound/keyword, video of student performing the letter name/sound/keyword, and a reading passage using the appropriate vowel sound.

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Warning: the video of Jessica sharing her Jolly Phonics book is extremely cute!

This year my eldest daughter Jessica has moved into Foundation Stage 2 and her phonics journey has begun as she learns to read. It's been a real joy to help her develop her sounds and reinforce the great work being done in school following the excellent Jolly Phonics programme.

I decided that it'd be great to help develop her understanding of the phonics through the creation of digital content, so I introduced her to Book Creator.

Now remember, Jessica is only four, so I knew that she'd need a fair bit of support but I also knew that she'd end up with something amazing that she could truly be proud of. In fact, there were several reasons that I felt this would make a great project for Jess.

She would be creating rather than absorbing content which is proven to produce higher retention rates in students.

She would create something that she could refer back to and further reinforce her understanding.

She would get to create multimedia pieces of work to help her learn the phonics in a variety of ways.

We could collate work from other apps and work created physically within the ebook.

We could share it to family abroad easily.

Jess could begin to appreciate the difference between an ebook and a physical book.

And so, a couple of weeks back, we began to create her book. The project has been amazing and Jess has been absolutely loving it (as you can see from the video below!).

We even mailed it to her Nan during a FaceTime call (gotta love the new split screen on iOS 9) and she lit up when nan suddenly held up her iPhone and Jess saw her book was on the screen!

How we made the book

I'm going show you what we included on each page and highlight any additional apps used.

I've been trying to keep a balance between using apps and real world activities. So far we have covered the following sounds: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, e, h and m.

We collated some images of things beginning with 'S' from the web and I taught Jess how to record her voice and then add invisible sound buttons to make the images interactive in her book.

How to add audio hotspots

For 'T', Jess practised the letter formation with a pencil. We just took a photo of this and then she added an invisible sound button. With 'T' on my mind, I found myself thinking of T-T-Tellagami so Jess used this to record the Jolly Phonics tennis-themed song for this sound.

She's actually played around with Tellagami before so she was eager to include it. Finally we looked at blending in some counting and using the stamps in Doodle Buddy, she created her image of ten toucans, ten turtles and ten trees!

For the letter 'i', we animated Inky the Jolly Phonics mouse in Puppet Pals and Jess sang along. Then she used an inky app called Splatter! to write the word ink.

The third piece was done in WordFoto, where we collated a selection of words that begin with 'i'. Can't remember how she ended up choosing that giant coin image though!

The second one is from the awesome Elmer The Patchwork (hence the choice) Elephant app from TouchPress.

Finally we have the puffing out the candle video. Check out the Jolly Phonics song for 'P' to see why!

The first piece for 'N' is probably one of my favourites in the book so far - I recorded Jess as she demonstrated how to write the letter. She sounds just like a little teacher!

This is accompanied by some sketches of things that start with the letter 'N'. We used the Drawing Pad app for them.

After taking a picture of one of our cats for the 'C' page, Jess wrote the word directly into her book using the pen tool.

How to use the pen tool in Book Creator

Later that day we were at a mall and she started spotting the letter all over the place so I gave her my iPhone and she snapped the signs. These then went into Pic Collage Kids and aligned the photos to show only the 'C' of each.

The video shows her making castanets from bottle tops and a paper plate. When she sat down to do this, I had no idea what she was actually doing but she had done it at school earlier in the week to go with the song!

Then we painted the letter and some pictures across a huge roll of art paper. The panorama setting on my iPhone allowed me to capture the whole thing as one composite image.

Then we took a picture of The Hulk into ChatterPix and she did an impression.

The last page in the book so far is 'M'. We started outside, drawing the letter on the driveway with chalk. I took some videos and photos and edited them in iMovie.

Jess chose her own theme, titles and music by the way. After this it was off on another sound hunt and we collated the photos that she took directly in Book Creator.

Working with images and video in Book Creator

Read the finished book!

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Dad teaches his daughter phonics with Book Creator - Book Creator app

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Warning: the video of Jessica sharing her Jolly Phonics book is extremely cute! This year my eldest daughter Jessica has moved into Foundation Stage 2 and her phonics journey has begun as she learns to read. It's been a real joy to help her develop her sounds and reinforce the great work being done in school following the excellent Jolly Phonics programme.

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Students work on their alphabetical order skills by sliding tiles to solve the puzzle.

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ABC Slider Puzzle is a new twist on putting the alphabet into alphabetical order!

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Use the Popplet app to make a mind map of the glued sounds in Fundations Unit 7. List 4 of the 8 glued sounds (-ang, -ing, -ong, -ung, -ank, -ink, -onk, -unk) and create a list of at least 4 words that fit into each category.

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Popplet is the easiest way to visualize ideas.

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Work with your classmates on this digital whiteboard. Add a sticky note to the Figjam board. On your sticky, write a sentence that uses a trick word from our Fundations unit.

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Students keep a journal of "silent-e" words they find while reading independently. Keep the journal in your independent reading bag and add a new word each time you read.

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Students work in pairs and use the motion-based learning game, GoNoodle with phonics songs, to practice letter sounds and blend sounds with their body movements.
This reinforces phonemic awareness and phonics through physical movement.

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Get down with the Wizard of Words as he raps about prefixes and suffixes.

Guided Dance Blazer Fresh Language Arts: English Pop 'N' Bop Kindergarten 1st Grade 2nd Grade 3rd Grade 4th Grade 5th Grade Follow Along

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Get down with the Wizard of Words as he raps about prefixes and suffixes.

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Play the children's game "Concentration", which involves clapping and saying words that are related to a chosen category without repeating words. The game can be played with partners or in a circle.

How to play

1. Choose a category, such as animals, fruits, or colors (in this case, use words that rhyme from the current or a review Fundations unit)

2. Clap and say a word that relates to the category

3. The next player must say a different word that relates to the category

4. Players cannot repeat words or hesitate

5. The first player to violate the rules loses the game

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Concentration 64 is a great hand clapping game to play at recess!
Here are the words to the game:
Concentration 64
No repeats or hesitations
I'll go first and you'll go second
The category is...

Possible categories are:
food, animals, colors, names, schools, bones, teachers, sports, games, singers, movie characters, toys, insects, fruit, land formaitons, states, countries, & books

See all

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Concentration 64 - taught by OBL 5th graders

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Concentration 64 is a great hand clapping game to play at recess! Here are the words to the game: Concentration 64 No repeats or hesitations I'll go first and you'll go second The category is...

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Nature Vocabulary Hunt

Activity: Take the class outside and use a tablet with a camera to take pictures of different plants, animals, or objects. Using apps like Google Lens, students identify objects and connect them with relevant vocabulary words.
Technology Integration: The camera and object-recognition apps make it easier to link nature to words, helping students connect real-world experiences with vocabulary.
Learning Objective: Expands vocabulary by relating nature to literacy concepts.