12 Days Before Christmas Break (#12) - Personalized Pop Up Cards with Flipgrid

I saw this post on Twitter on how to use Flipgrid to personalize gifts and it got me thinking about how I can use the idea this holiday season.

Flipgrid is a FREE video response system for students (which has a lot of cool features). If you aren't using it definitely check it out (it works with tablets as well as iPads). I would also highly recommend following them on Twitter for ideas and short tutorials.

Have students record a personalized message to a family member on Flipgrid. To add a twist have them use the emoji features to cover their face until the end (my video 👇). This requires that students pre-plan their message on paper (which I liked better than doing a straight recording...but if you are short on time a straight recording would work).

Students can use the "notes" feature to type their message so it doesn't look like they are reading from a piece of paper.

In the teacher admin area of Flipgrid you can print out QR codes to the video and have students glue them into their cards.

I love Robert Sabuda's pop up templates and chose the Christmas tree for this activity. There are several other holiday ones but the tree was in his "easy" popup category and I liked that it produced a larger card and lent itself to decorating.

I would plan for two class periods to complete this project. One to plan and record the message and one to make and decorate the card.

If you use this idea I would love to see some finished cards. You can either comment below or tag me on Twitter @atechcoachlife.

Comments

Secret Messages - How To (Light and Color)

This was fun activity that I got from Roper Mountain Science Institute. They suggested red theater gel to reveal the message, which can get pricy. Another idea I heard was to ask movie theaters to donate left over 3D glasses, which also have a red filter. A guest speaker we had last year said red jello would work. Tried it this week and it worked like a charm. The students thought it was very cool. I found my "attention challenged" students had trouble focusing on making their own secret messages so I was very glad that I had made extra copies of the sheets from the GEMS Color Analyzer book that they could color and then check under the jello.

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

QR Project - Open House

Twitter Post Link - https://bit.ly/3Umic7r I saw this adorable QR code project on Twitter and decided to try it out with a couple of third grade classes. We have several schools in our district who are "Leader in Me" schools and I asked a teacher if I could come in and make them for her open house (you don't need to be a "Leader in Me" school but I know they do a lot of goal setting and mission statements). She loved the idea! I decided to use Flip (formally Flipgrid) to do the recording. The web based program is free for educators and automatically generates the needed QR code. We started on a Thursday. I pulled students into the hall to get a picture of them holding a square piece of paper prior to an ELA block. The paper acted as a place holder for the QR code (which is square) and ensured I got the correct hand spacing so the students looked like they were holding the QR code. I found a spot that didn't have anything in the background. The background...

Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Search This Blog