Missing in Action....

Week 1 #GRA15 (Global Read Aloud)

 Now that I have your at attention I am really not missing in action but I have been absent from my blog for awhile due to juggling some many plates at school and getting my feet completely emerged into the Global Read Aloud project with my 1st and 2nd graders.  

    

  

After we read Chopsticks, listened to the Chopsticks song on Youtube, watched a video on how to use chopsticks we practiced  I gave the students four rules before we practiced using the chopsticks.  They were

1.)  You can't use 2 hands

2.)  You can loop the Cheerios..you had to pick them up

3.)  You can't pick the Cheerios up with your hands

4.)  You can't get frustrated, which many of them did.

Here is what it looked like:  

My students loved the book Chopsticks by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  They loved the play on words that she used to capture the attention of readers.  Here is a Padlet that we used to collaborate with our friends in Colorado.  My 2nd graders are working with a school in Illinois.  The one thing I need to work out is the time issue.  By this I mean that due to many of the collaborating schools being on different time zones it made it hard to collaborate in real time.  Therefore, students didn't always see what their partner school had to say about the book.  

Created with Padlet

On to Week 2:

      This week we will be reading Duck!Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  I practiced reading with my kiddos at home and they loved it.  I snapped this shot of them showing their excitment.  (So hard to get a pic of 3 youngsters looking happy all at once...you moms out there know what I am talking about.)

We are hoping to get some Mystery Skypes in with our partner schools this week.  The time zone difference really causes scheduling nighmares.

We did a variety of activities this week to make our presence know in the GLOBAL world.  This included Skyping with our friends in Maine and New York.  We learned a little bit about Twitter and what it means to "Tweet" and we sent out a tweet with our official vote on rather we think it is a rabbit or duck.  We also entered our opinions on if it is a DUCK or RABBIT on the official poll.  

Is it a duck or a rabbit?

Let us know! We will map your answers by the end of the week.

Class name


Class location?


How many thinks it's a duck?


How many thinks it's a rabbit?

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The official results are in..... here they are:

I wouldn't have guessed that there was such a big difference between the votes.  I personally see a DUCK first.  I guess I am in the minority.  The Thursday 1st grade Ms. Huntington's class voted 3 ducks and 19 rabbits.  They agreed with the majority of other kids across the world.

Things you will never hear a Google teacher say....

Global Read Aloud.....Excitement in the Air!!!

                          

I am meeting with some of my courageous co-workers tomorrow to plan for our upcoming GLOBAL READ ALOUD, which starts Oct. 5th and end Nov. 13th.  Teachers will be reading either a picture book a week or specific chapters for those upper grades and then we will be collaborating with classrooms all over the world.  This could be a bit messy but should be so much fun!  Here are a few resources for my coworkers.

First thing is to sign up on the Google Form to start receiving email

How to set up a classroom Twitter account

More on official hashtags that you may want to look at

Posters and parent letter to communicate you are using Twitter in your class

Summit Global Read Aloud bookmark

Setting up an Edmodo account  (you don't have to invite students since you will be using it with the entire class as a whole)
Here is the link to the Edmodo groups you may want to follow depending on what book you are reading

Other ways to connect with other classrooms

Schedule of when to read what

Circus Mirandus....What would your TICKET be?

5th and 6th graders listened to a reading from the new novel Circus Mirandus.  They then discuss how there were only two ways for Ephrium to get into the circus.  They were:

1.)  To offer something up that had a great connection with him.  The deeper the CONNECTION the longer your ticket was good for.  

2.)  You could offer a skill that would help the circus.  

Students were then asked what their item would be.  They had to fill out a ticket and then snap a picture of him or herself and send it to me in an email.  These were some of our pictures.  They were asked to reflect on how deep the connection was and come up with an expiration date for their ticket.

Jonah offers his TAG FOOTBALL skills

Reid offers his SHOE

Anna would offer her Triathlon medal

Caden would offer his stuffed WOLF.

Emma would offer her dancing ability.

Abbie offers her GYMNASTIC skills.

Ellie offers her SOCCER skills.

Emma would offer her CELL PHONE.

Callie offers her SOCCER skills.

Caleb would offer his FISHING skills

Rachel would offer her ART skills

This is the display of "tickets" in the hallway.

What your TEACHER/LIBRARIAN does in a day's work.

"Why We Read"- asking students to ponder their READING!!!

This week I asked my 3rd-6th graders to ponder "WHY THEY READ" and record it on a Flipgrid.  Here is the process.  Stay tuned for finished Flipgrids.  I gave kids two weeks to complete their recordings.  

Here are their FlipGrids.

Fourth through Sixth Graders Read Because.....

Third Grade Reads Because...

Planting Seeds of KINDNESS

      So as many of you may know I am a huge fan of the Reederama blog.  If you don't follow her you should because she does amazing things in her library.  I follow her lead on many of the lessons I teach.  

      I always tie Digital Citzenship into all of my lessons but I really do a focus lesson on it early in the year.  That lesson is quickly approaching so I thought what better way to lead into it other than to do a lesson on KINDNESS.  Following some recommendations online I have chosen two books to use with my first and fourth graders.  They are:  

s

As I was reading Each Kindness to my fourth graders not one sound was made.  They were so engrossed into this "compelling" story that they couldn't take their eyes off the book.  Students aren't used to hearing stories that have this type of ending.  We discussed how if the story had ended differently how would that have impacted the story.  

We discussed how we all plant seeds of "something."  Sometimes that is KINDNESS sometimes it can be SELFISHNESS.  I encouraged the students to think about what type of seeds they want to plant.  The illustrations in the book are amazing.  One student said "even though I don't like tomatoes I would like to pick that one off the page and eat it."

Fourth graders then used Schoology (online blackboard) to post one act of KINDNESS that they have been shown or that they had planted.  After they posted that they were encouraged to write their act on a SEED that will be displayed in our hallway.  Some of them were filmed by a class Digital Leader reading their act of KINDNESS.  

First graders were encouraged to write or draw a picture to show what KINDNESS can look like.  Some wrote words like LOVE.  Some drew pictures of people carrying items for someone else.  

First graders were asked to reflect on what the word KINDNESS means to them either through drawing or words.  Some of the words they shared were:

LOVE

HELPING

KIND

Here is the the final product.