Interactive Story Maps: Design, Maker and Legends with 3rd Grade

I am always looking for ways to combine design and maker activities with literature and reading. Each year the third grade classes read Native American legends as part of their literature studies. In the past we have collaborated on a project where students summarized the stories, found images that highlighted the story and recorded their summaries using iMovie. The project was a good one that introduced iMovie to the students and they worked in small groups which helped them develop collaboration skills. There were also challenges, sometimes students struggled to understand the stories, iMovie could be challenging on the iPads and there were concerns with the images students found when searching for Native American themes on Google. I was interested in rethinking this project and trying something new this year.

Over the summer I attended Project Zero Classroom at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and it was an amazing experience. During the week I participated in a session where we showed our understanding of a poem using art, music and movement. I was really inspired by this activity and was hoping to find a way to incorporate it into my projects this year. I also came across an amazing video on twitter where students created an interactive room. I thought what if we combined the ideas of sharing a piece of literature with movement, art, and music, with the idea of an interactive story map for the third grade Native American legends project.

The first step was having the students listen and read their Native American legend stories. In each class four students were assigned one story. We had the students read the stories and listen to audio recordings of the stories several times. The listening to the audio recording of the stories as well as reading them several times really helped with students understanding the stories. During the student’s literacy time they discussed and shared their understanding of the stories and talked about the characteristics and traits of legends. We then had students summarize their legend using a graphic organizer with four categories first, next, then and finally. Students worked on really thinking about what were the most important elements of the legend and summarizing the story in their own words.

For the next step students were assigned one section of their Native American legend. They each drew a picture of the most important event in their section of the legend. They were asked to really think about what was the essential event of their section and to spend time illustrating the story with their artwork and imagination.

Next: Introducing the Design and Maker elements of the Story Maps.