Given the cut back on musical programs in lots of schools, we thought we would provide children with a picture and a short video of six instruments and let them research and write, potentially about the various instruments, their origins, the way they are played (bow, fingers, hammers/mallets etc) and the various sounds they make.

“Monsters Under My Bed” is an original poem/book developed in the Learning Magic Electronic Storybook template. The poem was written by Byron and the artwork/illustration was done by Ann.

In this activity, the frame animation eagle from the IntelliPics Studio 3® Picture Library was used as the moving object on the screen. The goal of the activity was to provide a basis for children to write about both migration as it applies to animal movement and also to provide a basis for describing the landscape and mountains the eagle was flying by on its trip northward.

The activity opens as a book with a picture of the Titanic on the cover and then eight pages of text describing the Titanic and the disaster that occurred on April 14, 1912. After each page of text, the child is presented with a multiple choice question which tests for comprehension of the previous page’s content.

This original story is presented as a book with a cover and a single page of text. After the story is read, the child is then presented with five separate questions to test the child’s comprehension of the story. Questions not only test recall of the text but also inferred meaning within the story.