How to Use ChatterPix During Writer's Workshop

Do you have iPads in your classroom?  Do you do writer's workshop?  Then this post is for you!  I'm going to show you how I use ChatterPix, a free iPad app, in my writer's workshop. 



ChatterPix is an awesome, FREE iPad app.  It's by the app makers Duck, Duck Moose, who make some other incredible apps.  Essentially, in ChatterPix, you take a picture, add a mouth and then record so you can make pretty much anything talk.  It's funny and the kids LOVE it!  

When you are in the app, you take a picture of anything.  A book, you, a drawing and then you add a mouth.  Then you record what you want to say, and it makes that image talk by moving the mouth that you drew.  You can then add stickers, borders and backgrounds too which my kids always love. 

So you're probably wondering how can I use it in writer's workshop?  Well, let me tell you.  I'm always looking for ways to celebrate my students' writing.  At the end of every unit, we have a celebration for all the hard work we put into our writing.  When you can use the iPads and celebrate, it's a win-win for everyone.  

After our nonfiction writing unit, we had published our writing pieces, I wanted a fun way for my students to share their work.  Enter: CHATTERPIX!  I am a 1:1 iPad classroom (thank you Donor's Choose) and we use this app, along with others like seesaw, pic collage, doodle buddy and others, quite a bit, so I explained to the kids to use ChatterPix to share their work.  

I let them decide how they wanted to share their work using this app and let me tell you, they came up with some pretty incredible ideas.  

Here are some examples.  Click on the orange links below 

Gerbils Example

Flower Example

Didn't they come out great?!  

I've also used ChatterPix during our reader's workshop as well.  I've had students take a picture of something they have read about and recorded things they learned from reading that book.  

Here is an example of that:

Chameleon Example

Oh, and just a tip: only let your students use 1-2 stickers, filters, backgrounds or borders.  As you can see in my chameleon video, my friend added so many extras it was hard to tell what we were looking at.  

So I hope you LOVE this idea as much as I do.  And the kids absolutely love it too.  If you try it, please let me know and share it with me.  You can email me at ourelementarylives@gmail.com.  I'd love to see what your kids come up with.