Imagine being able to watch your favorite stories come alive on the computer screen. Well that is the purpose of a new program from Scholastic called Book Flix. This program uses video storybooks from Weston Woods and pairs them up with nonfiction ebooks. This program is geared for students in grades K-3 and will be available through the Iowa AEA Online by August 1, 2011.
There are over 90 books that students have access to with over 25 of them also available in Spanish. The stories are animated where the students can read them by themselves or the computer will read it to them and hi-lite each word as it is read. For each fiction-nonfiction pair there are extension activities to help build comprehension and vocabulary skills. Students have a chance to meet the author by reading a short biography about them and are directed to other books or websites by that author. There are also several activities for educators such as lesson plans, pre and post activities as well as standard alignment. These books are also whiteboard and smartboard friendly. There are also links to safe age-appropriate websites of related topics so students can explore more information.
This seems like a great program to really make favorite children's stories come alive. It seems teachers who have whiteboards or smart boards would make it easy to do a whole class story if there wasn't access to a classroom set of computers. I think students would love seeing the animated version of a story. It may also spark interest in reading for a reluctant or struggling reader. Teachers may be able to take this a step further and create their own animated books in the classroom.
Below is a video from a teacher in Virginia Beach showing the use of Book Flix within the classroom.
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