5-M Brings Stories to Life

As part of the 5th grade’s ancient Rome central topic study, Mike McPharlin’s class wrote short stories filled with details they learned about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D and the devastation to the town of Pompeii. This year 5-M took their project a step further and made their stories come to life! Students created interactive storyboards that added sounds to their dramatic tales.

The class spent time researching and learning about the volcanic eruption, the devastation and the archaeological discovery of the preserved town of Pompeii. Students took facts and information they learned and weaved it into historical fiction short stories. After the writing, editing and rewriting process, students began work on interactive sound stories. They gathered in the new TIDES Garage in the Kovler Family Library and planned the sounds they wanted to add to their stories by reading through the action parts of their writing. Next, they recorded their sounds or used free Web-based sound databases to find the perfect sound effects. They uploaded those sounds into the online coding program Scratch. Then, they connected their computers to a MakeyMakey board. This board interacts with coding programs to turn everyday objects into touchpads. After students recorded and coded their sounds, they were able to connect their boards using alligator clips to tinfoil buttons. Their stories had sound and were now interactive sound stories!

Next, 5-M gathered with their 1st grade buddies in the library to read their interactive stories. The 1st graders were able to tap the sound buttons to bring the dramatic tales to life.

Click here for photos from this lesson.