3rd Grade Solar System Soap Operas
Third graders at Davis Elementary have been learning about the motions of the Earth, sun, and moon (SOL3.8a). They have also been learning how to identify the problem and solution in the stories they read (SOL3.5h). So today students in Ms. Eller’s class wrote solar system soap operas about problems and solutions that the Earth, sun, and moon might have. First we brainstormed some possible problems that they might have if they had personalities and could talk (personification). Next I explained that we would be creating a three-panel comic using StoryboardThat. The first panel would present the problem, the second panel would show them trying to solve the problem, and the last panel would present the solution. We signed into StoryboardThat with our Google accounts, and I showed them how to change the background of each panel using the Scenes tab. Then we added Characters. I explained that they could use the clip art categories to find images or they could search for a specific picture. Finally we used the Textables to create speech bubbles. I pointed out that this was the most important part. They had to be very careful about what they typed in the speech bubbles so that the problem and solution were clear. When they were finished, they pasted the links to their comments in Google classroom with a question for their classmates to answer. You can take a look at their comics here, and read some of the comments.