Multi media projects for home school kids

[SherryTX]

My 9 year old daughter loves to learn (which is great for home schooling!) but doesn't get very exciting about handwriting narration, etc. She is getting a bit better at it, but sometimes it can be down right PAINFUL to get her to do narration, etc.

 

One thing I have tried is to tell her if she writes her first draft by hand, say for narration of a story she read, we can go through and find her spelling errors together, etc., and she can write the final draft on the computer.

 

We use the Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History as our history spine, and it covers a bit for science right now since we are still discussing dinosaurs, etc. She loves the links, and is actually quite good at using Google to find information on subjects she is interested. She asked me if she could make a slide show on dinosaurs. We don't have PowerPoint on the kids' computer, so she decided to use Windows Movie Maker instead.

 

She did additional research through Google, and then drew everything in Paint, and then wrote information on each picture. She then put them in Movie Maker, and imported a song (I believe it was All American Reject's "Move Along") and viola! A little "filmstrip" as it were on her favorite dinosaur.

 

There are still a lot of spelling errors in it, but so far so good. She did it fairly quickly as well. This weekend she is going to work on correcting the spelling errors, as well as listing her sources in the credits that she created.

 

I was pretty impressed with it (sure, I am biased, haha), and told her once she has finished editing it I will put it on YouTube.com so we can send the link to her grandparents, and she can send it to a few friends and her former teacher and resource teacher at the public school she attended. (Of course, I did tell her we couldn't use the song if we post it online, due to copyright laws, but that gives her another project - making her own song on our keyboard and importing it!)

 

After she finishes this one, she is going to start on another project on the time periods.

 

My husband and I are really excited about it because she isn't just playing around on the computer but learning how to use a few programs (which she taught herself for the most part) as well as doing a lot of in depth research.

 

Anyway, she is still going to have to do a bit of writing. However, for now, I think a lot of her projects will be computer based. It seems to really motivate her. I am also looking forward to her making charts and graphs in Excel to import into her little movies.

 

The nice thing about the software she is using is that it came free with Windows XP so no cost out of pocket. We do have some other software kicking around, too, since my husband is a programmer.

 

I was curious as to what other projects other home school parents have their kids doing?

[joannqn]

Sounds like fun. I couldn't get my DD to write more than a sentence or two until I allowed all writing to be on the computer.

 

My kids have been begging to use the video camera to make Webkinz videos. Maybe I should require that the Webkinz to an Animal Planet type show that tells real facts about real animals or a history show. The only problem with them using the camera is the format isn't a standard format so it is a pain to use as far as editing or uploading.

[SherryTX]

Sounds like fun. I couldn't get my DD to write more than a sentence or two until I allowed all writing to be on the computer.

 

My kids have been begging to use the video camera to make Webkinz videos. Maybe I should require that the Webkinz to an Animal Planet type show that tells real facts about real animals or a history show. The only problem with them using the camera is the format isn't a standard format so it is a pain to use as far as editing or uploading.

 

THAT is a great idea!