Toontastic Project

I am embarking on a new project with a group of second graders.  These are students I pull for RTI purposes and they are super excited to have the opportunity to work on a project that involves reading, research, and culminates with a Toontastics cartoon where they can tell everyone what they learned.
We read a guided reading book from Reading A-Z about living in a big city.  We live in a fairly rural part of Texas, though most of my students have been to Dallas because it's about an hour away.  We had a great discussion about what it would be like to live in a big city, how it would be different than what we are used to, what they would like and wouldn't like, etc. Then, we talked about what cities the students had visited, what they did while they were there, and if they ever wanted to go back.  We also talked about cities they had heard of but hadn't visited.
Next, each student chose a city that they would like to know more about.  We talked about what kinds of things they would need to know before they visited the city. For example, they were very interested in knowing where McDonald's was located.  I broadened that question by asking about restaurants in general--what types of foods do people like to eat there? Is there a famous restaurant?  We talked about landmarks and tourist attractions. We also talked about population and density.  One of the major concerns the students had with living in or visiting a big city was how crowded it was so they thought they needed to have an idea of how many people they might be bumping in to.
After we worked together to make a list of potential facts we needed to gather, I typed it up and distributed it to the students.  They used these questions as a guide as they began to do their research.  These students meet for 30 minutes twice a week and we have now been working on this project for about three weeks.  (We are doing some other things, too, like working on sight words and reading skills.)  They are just about done with the research phase.  They are working on gathering their information and determining which important questions still need to be answered.

The Toontastic Monkey!  Picture courtesy of Launchpadtoys.com 

Our next step will be writing a short script that tells about their city.  When that is completed, they will each be making a slide to go in a video which we will create using the app "Toontastic."  If you've never used this app before, check it out. There's a free version, which is very good by itself, and then a paid version.  There are several scenes to choose from and we've already talked about appropriate/inappropriate.  For example, you wouldn't have your character talking about a big city while standing in a cemetery or Frankenstein's laboratory. Once I have approved their scripts, each student will have the opportunity to set up their scene and record their message.  They will also get to add music.  When the entire project is completed, we can uploaded it to Toontastic's website, Launchpadtoys.com so that their teachers, classmates, and parents will be able to watch it.  It's a lot of fun but more importantly it's given them the opportunity to work on some important areas.  In order to put this together we've had to read, write, research, condense, summarize, work together, create a scene, animate characters, select appropriate music, and essentially perform a role.  While the topics of cities in and of itself may not seem that important, it's the act of completing a project and using all of these important skills that has made this beneficial to the students.  We've continued to incorporate reading, word work, and sight word work into our time because that is also important and critical to the success of these children but we are also working on our skills while we create something meaningful that will be long lasting for these students and those who have the opportunity to watch it.