I teach 5th grade at Plummer Elementary School in Los Angeles. One of my responsibilities is to support colleagues with professional development as they endeavor to incorporate technology into their curriculum. Recently, I attended an hour and a half introductory workshop for Pixie and ImageBlender and was eager to test them out in the classroom.

Since my own students were off-track for two months, I asked a colleague if some of her third graders could help me explore this new media with a research project. Mrs. Szasz, who regularly uses Pixie in the computer lab, cordially agreed to let me work with a small group of her students during a two week afternoon enrichment activity. Thrilled at the opportunity to demonstrate their talents, the children showed me how to create beautiful background scenes, and add animal stamps and textured three-dimensional paint patterns.

After becoming more familiar with the program, I introduced my research idea incorporating a story these third graders were reading in Open Court called A New Coat for Anna. “We will study and design the story settings using Pixie,” I stated, “and create background scenes that match the book.” All eyes were glowing! These little experts knew Pixie well and were eager to reread the story for details that could be added to their scenes. With the children so engaged in the literature, it made it easy for me to help them use critical thinking skills to make inferences about the value of Anna’s new coat.

“And now we need to add the characters to our pictures,” I beamed. “Who wants to be a movie star?” All hands shot up. Using a digital camera, I took photos of the children, placed the files on the Desktops, and showed them how to drag the .jpg files into Pixie. Many of the students had fun painting some of the costumes, while others quickly became the 3-D background specialists.

Anna's New Coat Video

We created a QuickTime movie of our project so that we could share it with the rest of the class. Everyone cheered as the Academy Awards were presented at the end of our feature. Our principal is so delighted with the project that she plans to share it at the district level. With this success under my belt, I am excited about returning to my own classroom in May to explore new possibilities in the 5th grade Open Court literature about the Wild West.