Project Based Presents

For Christmas, my family swaps gifts that we make for each other. We draw names from a hat the year before and even the youngest toddler is in the mix. Everyone participates, everyone creates something and everyone loves it. (My brother Keith usually out does us all with some ridiculous computer he builds for one of the kids ;)

This year, I helped my four year old son create this one minute video as his gift to his five year old cousin Liz. He wrote the story, painted the pictures and then I recorded his narration. I built what is basically a moving slideshow. The final step was to put it on StoryKit on her iPod Touch. Here's the iPhone version.

Unmitigated cuteness aside, I've thought a lot about the educational process that went on here.

• How fun it was for him, even though it could have been perceived by him as an 'assignment.'
• How much the public presentation of the video influenced the work.
• What he learned about story telling and the writing process.

Now granted, Dad had a heavy hand with the technological parts of the gift, but the images and words were all his.