This afternoon the campers were introduced to three new tools for creating stories and animations. CHOMP is an iOS app that children can use to create video stories. The tool offers over 50 hand-drawn scenes with humorous animations to which children can insert their own photo to create a video story.
CHOMP is currently available for purchase from the Apps Store for $2.99 (We had previously downloaded CHOMPS for the AT&T Classroom a few months ago when it was available at no cost.
Puppet Pals is an iOS app that can be used to create digital stories with animation and voice-over audio. The app offers templates with backgrounds and characters that students can use to create an animated movie with their recorded voice. Puppet Pals is a great tool for encouraging students' creative thinking and language skills while also providing an opportunity to focus on story elements and building a story. Both free and premium versions are available in the Apps store.
Tellagami is an iOS app for creating short animated videos referred to as a Gami. The app offers Avatar-type characters and backgrounds that can be used for creating a Gami message. Gamis can be shared via Twitter, Facebook or email.
The campers also had a coding lesson today using the Code Monkey website. Code Monkey is an online game that engages children with coding and programming concepts as they are participate in game play. The website offers new games and challenges to players each month. In addition to coding skills, games such as Code Monkey also offer important opportunities to children for further developing their creativity and problem-solving skills as well as skills for divergent and higher order thinking.
