Part III - Creating Chinese Characters in Kidpix
With poems and characters in hand, we headed to the Computer Lab. My idea was to have each of the children create one of the characters in their poem in Kidpix. Then I would put them together where we could then add audio. This DID NOT WORK!!! Creating characters in Kidpix proved to be too difficult for most of the children, so back to the drawing board!

Part IV - Creating Characters with Pencils and Pens
The children had a much easier time writing characters with pencils, so back in the room that is what we did. They then traced their characters with Sharpies and we arranged them in the order of their poem.

Part V - Scanning and Appleworks Templates
Next I scanned their characters and saved them as jpgs. Using Appleworks Drawing I created a template for each group. The template consisted of their characters, two text boxes (one for poem, one for poets' names), all enclosed in a rectangle. My objective was to introduce them to the Drawing capability of Appleworks, along with the gradient fills available. Note: These were saved as Drawing files.

Part VI - Appleworks Drawing Templates
Back in the Computer Lab, the children opened their templates and set to work. They were asked to type their poem and their names and then choose a gradient fill that they felt best matched their words. This proved to be an easy task for most - YAY - and they did a GREAT job (even though not all chose the gradient I would have - :-o)! Each of these were saved as jpg files, so they could be imported into a Kidpix page later. Here is one example:

Part VII - Kidpix Slideshow
Each jpg file was inserted into a Kidpix page where voices were recorded and another background added. The children read the Chinese characters, then the poem, and finally the poet names. These pages were then put together in our "First Snow" Slideshow. We saved it as a quick-time movie, too, so we could import it to watch on the Wacky TV feature of Kidpix.

Part VIII - Jigsaw Puzzles!
Using jigzone.com, I uploaded our jpg files and turned them into puzzles! You can begin solving by clicking on the image above.

Here is where you can find our Puzzle Gallery with the rest of our images.

Important: When you go to the Puzzle Gallery, I definitely recommend you choose 20 piece classic as your puzzle cut (found at the top of the pictures). This is a very doable puzzle for second graders. You can also choose 6 piece classic for K and 1 kids, and more challenging cuts for older grades.ENJOY!