Graded readers to great storytellers!

Well done Haruka & Ayaka for creating your own inter-stellar movie!

Rei's Pirate Diary

This is an adaptation of Rei's journal from last week. Rei is the big white monster, with his little friend Shin-chan. They had an interesting rainy Sunday morning with Lego. Read on!

How to make a Dvolver movie - backstage!

See one, make one, teach one

I thought you'd like to see the backstage activity that takes place in producing a Dvolver 'movie', such as my Monday girls have posted in the last week or so. Last week, only two of them turned up, so I plonked them in front of a PC each, in adjoining rooms, and put a whiteboard in the corridor.

On one PC I showed them "How to" through the pre-writing stages - choosing a scene & weather which was a bit like their holiday story; a scenario that worked - meeting a friend best as it leant itself to a chat; picking two characters (interesting that they all had similar self-images as 'character 1'!)

Little bit of team work goes a long way!

Then the girls asked how to say what they wanted to say, which I wrote on the board. We haven't done past tenses yet so this just sowing the seeds for them. I don't like 'copying, hence the board in an inconvenient place so they had to try & remember 'chunks of words/sentences. Then they switched rooms and became 'character 2', asking a question about their partner's holiday. Naturally, they had to ask each other what they'd just written too! We repeated the switches until we completed three cycles, then they chose their favourite (actually least disliked!) piece of music , added a title and their names, a credits style & bravely pressed 'enter'.

This week, my two 'originals' were the helpers as their classmates turned up, following the same steps but with some bolshie, unenthusiastic spellers! Beauty of this was having to shout over each other to be heard, repeating spellings and seeking confirmation etc. The youngest, quietest one finally found her voice - best speller and got fed up with her partners!

My summer holiday movie - Yuu

My first movie

In my late bid to become a Hollywood Mogul, I have just produced my first film.

It was made in twenty minutes flat and cost me absolutely nothing; the intention was to boil a classroom discourse retelling a story about a neighbourly conflict down to the bare bones, but to include as much target language as possible. This is a resource we will definitely be making a lot more use of in future, as I think our teens will enjoy making toons!

Check out this one for now - hoping my first group of directorial acolytes will share their story precis here too (going to team review in Edmodo first, as a safety net)...holding your breath?!

http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-392316