News with help from the ‘newsman’

I wonder if it helps having a journalist for a Dad when it comes to ‘producing’ News (Show & Tell) for school.

As Mum had jumped on a plane to Canada for an inclusive eductation conference it was up to the ‘boys’ to prepare ‘news’ on their own this week.

Breaking News… Nan & Pa came to visit!

CLICK THE BREAKING NEWS LINK ABOVE TO HEAR THE FINAL PRODUCT

The process was as follows:

 

1. Mac and Dad decide on a topic (Mac gets 2 or 3 choices and has to give a facial expression response to indicate his preference)
2. Dad writes the content on the computer using a handwriting font of similar standard to the rest of the class
3. Cousin Alex comes up to voice the news in Audacity
4. Dad tweaks the ‘pitch’ to reduce Alex’s 13 year old voice to a 5 year old voice
5. Mac listens to the news and a grin usually signifies approval
6. Dad saves the news onto the Step Communicator for Mac to ‘switch through’, one sentence at a time, at school’
7. Dad prints the text version with pictures to provide a text/picture option to support the story

 

The NEW aspect we have added to the news is to pose a question at the end.  
We hadn’t realised being new to the whole kindergarten thing that children, on completion of their news, ask “are there any questions?” to enable dialogue to continue.  

To allow this type of discussion to occur we now place a question to the children from Mac.

I think it works OK.

news

Our first News Day has been successfully completed.

We gave Mac a choice on what he wanted to tell for ‘news’ (show & tell).  We gave him three choices

1. Tell about his trip to Sydney for ABR (his physical therapy)
2. Talk about Wombat Poo
3. Tell his knock-knock jokes on his ‘step communicator’

You guessed it… he chose #2 – Wombat Poo.  Three times we gave him the three options, three times he grinned, smirked or gave the ‘evil glint’ at Wombat Poo.

So here it is.

We recorded it onto his ‘Big Step’ communicator after altering the voice in Audacity.

It’s not perfect – but it is better than the audio sounding like a grown up speaking.

Here’s the pdf of his news.

The kids were most impressed about Mac’s news – it seems there is a significant amount of “poo kudos”.

Wombat Scat – the news and views of a Kindergarten Kid.