💕My Heart Fills with Happiness 😃
This is one of my favourite read alouds to share with all ages. I’ve read it in so many classrooms across my division and also shared it with teachers and students in other places when presenting and leading workshops. My Heart Fills with Happiness is a beautiful book by Monique Gray Smith about the things that bring us joy. It doesn’t have a lot of words, but it has a lot of meaning.
The simplicity of the text make it great to use as a model text for writing. Students of any age can easily use the pattern of the text to generate their own written ideas. I usually suggest the use of the sentence starter “My heart fills with happiness when…”. Students might use this exact starter or take creative liberties by changing up the phrasing. There are two ways that I use this book to inspire creating with technology in my role as a technology coach.
For both activities , I read the book to the students and then we brainstorm some of the things that make our hearts happy (people, foods, activities etc). We sometimes re-read parts of the book to inspire our own ideas.
2 Tech Activities to Complement My Heart Fills with Happiness
Next, I help students do one of two things:
- Sometimes I ask students to write and draw about something that makes their heart happy, then photograph their work and record their voice sharing their ideas in the Seesaw app. I’ve successfully done this activity with students as young as Kindergarten, especially since the voice recording option gives early writers another way to express their ideas.
OR
2. Sometimes we create our own class book of things that fill our hearts with happiness. I usually do this activity with Book Creator (the iPad app or web-based version, depending on the age of the learners and devices available in the classroom. Book Creator is one of my ultimate favourite tools because students can make beautiful books with images they source from copyright-free sites and then add their own text, backgrounds and more. It tends to result in very polished-looking products that the kids are really pleased with!
You can set up a collaborative book or have students each create their own, depending on how much time you have and what works best for your learners! You can have students design their pages fully digitally right in Book Creator or have them do some writing and/or drawing on paper and then photograph their work to include on the pages of the book. Book Creator also offers the options of adding voice narration and publishing the book online (password-protected or public links available).
Feel free to contact us with any questions you have about these activities or share with us on social by tagging @kgeducation.ca when you’ve tried the read aloud or one of the activities I’ve shared!
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