Digital storytelling is a powerful methodology to develop good teamwork. An interesting tool to explain concepts as ecosystems or emotions. The activity links the work at school with the family.
Children with special education needs have the benefits of a technology tool to express emotions and knowledge, also they can have principal roles in the groups by dividing the activity into different corners.
General goal. Discover the main ecosystems of the planet.
Specific objectives:
The practice will take a total of 5 sessions of 45 minutes distributed in 29 days (a lunar cycle).
The teacher recommends to the students to watch the moon phase with their family every night to see the changes.
The classroom must be divided in 4 corners, one in an informal stage. Each corner must have paper, pencils, crayons, etc.
FULL MOON SESSION: The teacher will read the tale “Moon: Nighttime around the world.”, make 4 random groups, and explain the 3 ecosystem corners: desert, forest and polar.
FIRST QUARTER SESSION: Each group goes to one ecosystem corner and design a story transforming the natural elements into characters. Each child can be one of these characters. They take draws of their characters and do role play. The teacher is going to be, in all groups, the moon and the main emotion of the moon changes in each session, depending on the lunar phase they work. They dedicate a few minutes to record the scenes at the informal stage.
NEW MOON: All the groups change the ecosystems corner. The group at the polar ecosystem corner moves on the desert corner, the group at the desert corner moves on the forest corner, the group at the forest moves on the polar ecosystem and they record a scene with their draws.
THIRD QUARTER SESSION: As in the new moon session all the groups change the ecosystem corner and record the scenes.
FULL MOON FINAL SESSION: All the groups together watch their movies. Everyone talks about their character and the emotions and feelings of the moon. They can exchange the draw of the character with a classmate.
A digital camera is used to record children’s characters in their ecosystem corners.
This digital tool lets children move characters on the screen and record their voices, creating stories that were saved as video files.
A projector will be used to project the images that the digital corner group will elaborate on the screen and create a stimulating and immersive environment.
Book: Britta Teckentrup (2017) Moon: Nighttime around the world.
Papers, pencils, crayons, and scissors.
The final movie has nine chapters, each one introduced by the moon in a different phase and with a different main emotion and in a different ecosystem. There are no two same chapters.
To support the inclusion of children with special education needs the teacher will spread these children in the four groups and give, at least in one corner, the main character to them.
The families will read the book with the children and they are involved in the activity by watching the different moon phases every night.
The main strength of the activity is the use of technology, which will make teamwork more dynamic and attractive to the children. The technology and the drawings will also help the children with language difficulties to express different emotions.
The final movie is a great opportunity to explain emotions. The classmates can compare easily how the characters of the ecosystems change their behavior depending on the emotions of the moon.
INCLUDED – Digital Storytelling for Inclusion