Harold and the Purple Crayon

Kindergarteners remind me of bobbleheads.

Watch the 7 second video of a bubbly boy who is so excited for his turn to use the interactive whiteboard. He is third in line which is why the girl next to him says "no."  

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZY1tN3ycj4[/youtube] 

I created a lesson around the book, A Picture for Harold’s Room, by Crockett Johnson.  Through a PTA grant, I received the Epson Brightlink Interactive Whiteboard in our library. It is like a Smartboard except it uses any surface to project an image. In addition, the screen size can be adjusted which gives me more flexibility with height. For this lesson I scanned all the pages of the book and put them in a PowerPoint.  I read the pages and the students followed along with what was happening in the story by using the white interactive pen to draw in purple. For instance, one student would draw the purple line, another student would draw a house, etc. Each student received a turn with the "purple crayon."

This lesson aids students with comprehension strategies such as sequencing and story retelling. It addresses different learning styles by hearing the story (auditory), seeing the pages projected on the screen (visual) and using the pen to draw what is happening with the story on each page (kinesthetic). At the end of the lesson, students made up their own “purple crayon” stories.

According to Bloom’s taxonomy for digital citizens the lesson moves students to a higher order of thinking that involves creating. In addition, the lesson reinforces what students are doing in Readers Workshop which is story sequencing and retelling. I put together a short video showing the students retelling the story, making up new stories, and figuring out how to use the interactive pen. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmcrbQ6w9fM[/youtube]

There's a video on YouTube of the story that is good but when I showed it first in the lesson to students it made the lesson too long. The students got restless.