Class Books For 21st Century Learners

This week we are working on name writing, both ours and those of our friends. We are emphasizing the first letter capital and the rest lower case and using proper letter formation. To do this we always do a Student of the Day and each student draws and writes the person's name for a class book. Well, this year I thought I'd take the class book to a new level using a great app I discovered this summer. If you haven't already gotten it I HIGHLY recommend MyStorybook Maker. It is one of the most kid friendly book making apps I've found. Right now I am using it with my students making a whole group book. I take a photo of the student of the day with the camera on the iPad then import it into the book and type our sentence "Jenny is my friend". Super easy. I can add borders, change the font, add sound effects, or record my voice reading the story aloud. I can then e-mail it as a PDF when we are finished and print it out to put in our book center. It was not a free app, but it was well worth the money. (I think it was around $3.99?) I can't wait to use this app more and more throughout the year, eventually putting the technology into the hands of my students and having them creating their own books.