Tie up kids’ enthusiasm for the holidays with a tech lesson!
Read “Mrs. Claus Goes on Vacation” by Linas Alsenas to your students. To start this story, Mrs. Claus has been quite upset about the lack of vacations and trips. Her daily jobs like feeding the reindeer seem boring. So she gets on the sleigh and travels the world in the days leading up to Christmas. Santa Claus is worried about her. She returns and they go out on the one night world tour.
After reading this story, ask students to think about where Santa and Mrs. Claus might want to travel. Santa never stays anywhere other than the North Pole for long, so he imagines they’re going on vacation.
Using photography software, whether it’s something as advanced as PhotoShop or as old as HyperStudio, students can combine two photos. Ask students to find copyright-compliant images online and save them. Then insert the background image. Next, “cut out” a picture of Santa and/or Mrs. Claus and glue them onto the background. This could look like Santa visiting Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, or anywhere else you can imagine!
Next, have your students create a journal entry for the trip log that describes where you are and what you are doing there. For example, “Santa has always wanted to visit Mount Rushmore. He usually only sees it from above. This time, he and Mrs. Claus took a three-day vacation to walk the whole area.”
Write that journal entry and add it to the photo overlay.
Once the pages have been created, there are a few options:
1.Print each page. Bind in a trip log book for the class.
2. Combine all the pages electronically and make a slide show. Record the voices of each student reading your entry.
3. Turn the electronic slideshow into a podcast and share it with the world. Post it on your class or school website and submit it to iTunes.
Children love this activity. Seems to be one they ask for year after year.
So, dress up a strong tech lesson with vacation content and watch your students rush to the computers to start their project.
Closing Notes: this exact same lesson can be done using the book “Liberty’s Journey” by Kelly DiPucchio. In this story, the Statue of Liberty wants to tour the rest of the United States. Choose background photos of places in the United States and then overlay Lady Liberty. She writes about where she is and why she decided to stop there.