You Ought to Be in Pictures!

By Fran Mauney

Have you ever heard a parent ask his or her child, “What did you do in school today?” and the student say, “Uh, nothing.”? As a teacher, it was shocking when my students would forget about all the exciting science projects they had done that day or the fun they had at centers or the fantastic stories they wrote during writing that morning.  I found a way to solve that problem, it’s photography!  Each week, the class photographers and I would take 30-40 photos of our activities and I would post them on the website www.snapfish.com.  My students would upload the photos to the computer, then I would send them to snapfish.  Finally, I would email the link to the parents each week.  Families loved seeing their children as they worked with friends, read stories on the microphone, manipulated objects on the Promethean board, played on the playground, and created buildings at the engineer center. 

Now there are so many great websites to publish photographs of students and their work.  I recommend:  shutterfly, dumpr, flickr, photopeach, picturetrail, and voicethread just to name a few. We’ve enjoyed making virtual field trips using these sites and having students comment on the photos.  Students can also publish pictures and work on blogs and wikis.  Here is a blog that was created at SCASL last month after visiting the Greenville Zoo.   Glogster is another site used for making posters and collages.  Finally, for all the scrapbookers and art smart children, they can now make their own designs online using scrapblogs.

So, spend time reflecting at the end of the day with your students about what they learned at school.  Call on each child by pulling a name out of a cup and have him or her tell you what they learned, without repeating what another student said.  That way, when mom or dad asks, “What did you learn in school today?” they’ll be able to tell them a few examples AND share some really nice photos with them.