Fifth graders at Varina Elementary have been reviewing animal habitats and ecosystems (SOL4.5), so today students in Ms. Rumans’ class created animal habitat comics. We used StoryboardThat to create the comics. First students selected a wild animal of their choice. I told them to pick an animal they were interested in and curious about. To broaden their horizons a bit, we discussed a variety of wild animals so they all didn’t pick cheetahs (which are insanely popular with elementary students for some reason). Once they picked their animals, they had to research their animals’ habitats and food webs. I showed them some quick guidelines for getting the information they needed by typing “name of animal” + “habitat” or “predators” or “prey” into a Google search. We used the basic layout on StoryboardThat with three panels, and each panel had to explain one of these facts. First we used the Scenes tab to get images of the animals’ habitats. Most of the habitats are included in the clip art. However, when it came to adding the animals, the clip art is somewhat limited. So students had to be creative and use animals that looked similar. I think the best example of creative problem-solving was using the hedgehog image for a beaver! I also showed them how to use the search box to look for additional items they needed, like nuts for a squirrel. They quickly found the blood splatter clip art which truly enhanced their predator/prey images. Finally we added the speech bubbles, and students wrote their facts in complete sentences. Some of them got creative with that too, writing it like it was a television documentary. I think you’ll enjoy looking at their final projects here.

Fifth graders at Laburnum Elementary have been learning about vertebrates and invertebrates (SOL5.5b), so today students in Ms. Hall’s class created comics to help explain the difference between these two types of animals. We used StoryboardThat to create our comics. StoryboardThat is the best webtool around for creating comics because of its huge library of customizable clipart. I’ve used often in lessons (you can search my blog for other examples). The only problem with using it at the elementary level is that its terms of service specify that only students 13 years of age or older can have accounts. So we don’t let our students create accounts, but they can still make comics using the free version, then we save them by taking screenshots. First we created our three scenes (the free version is limited to 3 or 6 scenes). I explained that the first scene needed to be an introduction, the second scene would be about vertebrates, and the last scene would be about invertebrates. The students had to plan out which animals they were going to focus on so they could chose appropriate habitats for the backgrounds. A cool new feature on StoryboardThat allows you to customize the background scene by changing the weather and the time of day (click the blue “Edit Scene” button). Next the students added characters and animals (click the Characters tab at the top, then choose the Animals submenu). You can customize the characters as well by clicking the “Edit Pose” button. Finally we added speech bubbles, called “Textables” here, and typed complete sentences explaining the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates. I showed them how to take a screenshot of their finished comics using the Snipping Tool (or Command+Shift+4 on a Mac), and we shared them on Google classroom. You can see all their comics here.