Using Comic Life with Elementary School Students August 9, 2008
Comic Life in the Elementary Classroom
This Comic Life project might last from three to five days depending on the capabilities of the children. Using Comic Life for Mac or PC the first grade child will work with his or her fifth grade buddy. You will install the pictures that you want the children to use or they can incorporate their own depending on how computer savvy they are or your time limit.
MATH STANDARDS: Concepts and number operations/Tell and solve number stories to sums of ten
This first lesson is a Math activity. On their first meeting, the fifth grader will introduce Comic life and evaluate the capabilities of the first grader as far as using the PC and the program. If the young student cannot work with the program then the fifth grader will do most of the inputting. They will make up a story problem for both addition and subtraction and then, they will construct two story problems using Comic life. (One for addition and one for subtraction)They can use my examples or construct one of their own.
This is a great way to tie in other subjects such as health and science. For example: After your math lesson you could reflect on how the little kitten felt sitting there all alone…This is a good transition to the next lesson on emotions. Please look at the example. The lesson on emotions can then tie very easily into a lesson about the weather. Your discussion can focus around how your feelings or emotions can change depending on the weather.
Using the Comic life program makes learning so much more interesting than reading out of a textbook or doing a worksheet. When learning is fun children stay focused on the task and maybe they will not realize that are actually learning. Wouldn’t that be great?
