By Traci Piltz
PicCollage Kids is such a versatile, creative and fun app for students, that it’s a perfect tool to celebrate the end of the year! This post will share three of my favorite ways to use it with K-2nd grade students.
Digital Selfie Scoot from Erintegration
This idea from Erin at Erintegration is so awesome and makes a terrific end of the year keepsake for students. I modified it just a bit for the young learners I work with, and here’s what I did!
We began this activity by reading the story One Word Pearl by Nicole Groeneweg, which is a wonderful introduction to generating describing words about their friends. After reading the story, we created an anchor chart of adjectives we can use to describe one another.
We then used the app PicCollage Kids to begin our digital selfie projects. Students began by taking a selfie, then use the clip tool by double tapping the image and used their finger to trim the background off of their selfie photos.
Once done, they clicked the checkmark to insert the photo into their collages, and then used the + sign to access the background and stickers. I let students add whatever background they liked, and choose TWO stickers to decorate their collage with.
After the collages were created, students joined me at carpet and sat in a circle with their iPads on the floor in front of them. We played Scoot by scooting the iPads instead of ourselves. When given the “go” signal, everyone passed an iPad to their left, added a kind adjective about their friend (Just one word! The anchor chart was a huge help!) using the text tool, and then when I said “Pass!” they passed again. We did this until every student had written a describing word on each friend’s collage.
Doing them this way helped manage these young learners and allowed me to provide them the support they needed. They were seriously SO ENGAGED while typing on their friends’ collages. The finished projects turned out fantastic, and we shared them on Seesaw. They could also be printed and given to students as an end of the year keepsake.
My Summer Looks Bright!
For this activity, I adapted this fun writing project from the blog elementary-mydear.blogspot.com into a digital collage.
We started by taking a selfie and trimming it using the clip tool (double tap the image and use a finger to trim away the background). I then had each student use the text tool to type “My Summer Looks Bright!” on the top of their collage. They could use the text formatting tools to change the font and color.
Students then used the web search tool to search “sunglasses png”. Adding the “png” is a fun trick I learned from fellow PicCollage Ambassador Erintegration. This allows students to find images with a transparent background, and helps them to build some super creative collages!
They each chose a pair of sunglasses to add to their collages, then used the same web search trick (using png) to search fun things they plan to do this summer. They could also add text explaining their summer activities, or upload to Seesaw and add their voice to explain.
End of the Year Photo Collages to Share with Parents
PicCollage is a great way to collect photos from a fun end of the year event, like a trip to the zoo, music performance, field day or end of the year party. I have PicCollage installed on my phone to quickly create collages and share with parents via Seesaw.
I hope these ideas will be fun and easy for you try with your little learners during these last couple days or weeks of school!
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.
Nice idea!
Love it