iBooks Author- fourth grade

The Common Core Standards are trying to make students creators and thinkers.  To end the year I usually teach my fourth graders how to create animations but with the new technology and the push of iPads in my district, I have decided to teach my students how to create an iBook.

While working with the fourth grade classroom teachers we decided the students would research and write about an element of geometry.  Each of the following elements will be a chapter in a class ibook: circles, measuring angles, classifying triangles, quadrilaterals and other polygons, and points lines and line segments.

We started with defining 'multimedia' and looking at an ibook created by students. "Creatures, Plants, and More"  a free iBook for the iPad created by middle school students.  It is full of text, pictures, and video.

Once students had an idea they used their math book and websites to learn about Geometry.  Geometry turned out to be more of an interesting topic than the students and I expected because the websites were often interactive.  The students used:

Math is Fun: http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/plane-geometry.html
Geometry for Elementary School: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Geometry_for_Elementary_School
Kids Math: http://www.kidsmathgamesonline.com/facts/geometry.html

I read the story "Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland" by Cindy Neuschwander to show students they could write a non-textbook style book.

 The students have taken pictures and recorded video and have started putting their written content into iBook Author.  I hope we finish before the school year ends.

Common Core
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.9 Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.5 Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.