By Traci Piltz
PicCollage Kids is one of my favorite “go to” apps for creating in the classroom. It’s so versatile, and kids love to customize their collages with fun colors, fonts and images. This activity involves using PicCollage Kids to allow students to create two digit number collages using images you send to your students via Seesaw.
This activity is built for 1st grade, but can be adapted for any grade level. Students will draw a “lucky number”, then put that many gold coins into their pot of gold on PicCollage Kids.
To begin, you’ll send the pot of gold image to your students somehow (Airdrop, a QR code, etc). Students will also need the image of 10 gold coins, and the single gold coin. I always use Seesaw as a quick way to send students images I’d like them to download to the camera roll of their iPads. Once you’ve sent students the image(s), they can click “share” and save the image(s) to their iPads. So fast and easy!
Students could also use the web search tool in PicCollage Kids to search “gold coin png” and use these to fill their pot of gold. However, I found the “10 frame” of gold coins to be helpful for students when building two digit numbers.
After students have the images on their iPads, they’ll open the PicCollage Kids app and begin a new collage. Have students add the pot of gold image, then long tap the image to reveal a new menu. Students should select “set as background” and make the pot of gold the background of their collage.
Next, students will draw a “lucky number” and use the camera tool in PicCollage Kids (access it by choosing “photos”), to take a photo of their number to add to their collage.
Students will then use the “photos” option to add the coin images to their collage. Depending on their number, they can long tap each image and duplicate it as many times as they need to, to build their number. (For example, to build the number 31 I would duplicate the image of 10 coins twice, so I have a total of 30 coins. I would not need to duplicate the single coin, as I would only need one copy of it.)
When student collages are finished, they can save the images to their iPads and post to their Seesaw learning journals. I love having them use the microphone tool to tell about their collages and how they built their numbers.
If you’d like to access a copy of the materials I used to create these collages, you can find the Google Slides here. Adorable clipart is from Polka Dots Please.
A kindergarten teacher at heart, Traci Piltz now work as a technology integration specialist for K-2 teachers in our district. She loves how technology transformed her kindergarten classroom into a place where students could learn, create and share in brand new ways! As a PicCollage, Seesaw and Book Creator Ambassador, it makes her happy to share meaningful ways these apps can be used in classrooms! You can connect with her on Twitter @TraciPiltz, by email piltzt@billingsschools.org or on her blog.