Global Read Aloud Connections

I've been participating for many years, but the Global Read Aloud remains one of my favourite learning activites of the year! The idea is that classrooms around the world read the same book on the same schedule and then make connections with partner classes in a different location to learn and share. I believe these connections are the most powerful part of the project!

This year in Park West School Division, a number of classes participated in the Global Read Aloud and made connections in various ways. Our students have sent postcards digitally or on paper, made Padlet posts online to discuss the book, participated in video discussion on Flip and met online via video conferencing to talk about the books and learn about each other.

One class got to experience an extra-special connection this week!

Ms. Courchene’s Grade 5 class had the incredible opportunity connect with their Global Read Aloud partner classes in New York to meet author Jarrett Lerner online for a Q&A session!

The students in both locations read A Work in Progress by Jarrett Lerner and connected online via Padlet throughout the 6 weeks of the Global Read Aloud to discuss the book. We were so excited when our partners in New York asked if we'd like to join their video call with the author!

The Grade 5s in each location created some great questions to find out more about the author and the process of creating the book.  We had watched some of Jarrett Lerner's Behind the Scenes videos about the book and used that information to revise and improve our questions.  We wanted to ask questions that he hadn't already answered in his videos or on his blog. 

I am super proud of the thoughtful questions that the Grade 5s created!  Students were brave about speaking up to ask the questions they'd planned and it was very interesting for all of us to hear Jarrett's answers.  

To put in perspective what a unique opportunity this is: I’ve been participating in Global Read Aloud since 2014 (with my own class and then with other classes as a tech coach) and this is the first time I’ve ever had the chance to meet a GRA author!  What a special experience!

Our Pattern Pictures

Our current grade 1 math learning is focused on patterns.  The patterning goals for grade 1 students are:

• describe a pattern
• extend a pattern that is already started
• create a pattern
• translate a pattern (ie: green, yellow, green, yellow, green, yellow could be translated to ABABAB)

An important part of learning in our classroom is connecting with others.  Over the course of our school year, our class will connect with other classrooms, experts, authors and others that can help us learn.  This week, we connected with a partner classroom, the Oak Lake Community School Kindergarten class, via video call.  The grade 1s were able to explain what they know about patterns and they helped teach the Kindergartens about patterns.  I was pleased to hear my grade 1s explaining that "patterns repeat over and over" and the grade ones capably started patterns for the Kindergartens to extend.  Our challenge after the call was to go on a "pattern hunt" to find and photograph patterns.  Below is the Sway presentation we created with the photographs from both classes.  We also included photos from our earlier work in creating patterns.  Students were excited to share this presentation with their families during the school open house!

Global Read Aloud: Chopsticks & Meeting 2KG

Today our Global Read Aloud books by Amy Krouse Rosenthal arrived!  We were so excited to see our set of books for this reading project. 

Right away, we decided to read aloud this week's featured book, Chopsticks.  Our class thought it was funny and we enjoyed the beautiful illustrations.

We also met another GRA partner classroom today!  The 2KG class in Bangkok, Thailand sent us a video to say hello.  Using Bing Maps, we added their city to our map and looked at how far away they are from us! 

We were also surprised to learn that at 11AM this morning in Canada it was already 11PM in Thailand.  In order to share our ideas and learn with our new friends, we will have to use messages and videos rather than live video calls.  We started by sharing ideas on this Padlet board created by 2KG teachers Ms. Jennifer Baccon & Ms. Kathryn Grossi.  Their focus question for us was "How did you connect to this book?"  Many students in our class could relate to being separated from a special person (just like the Chopsticks decide to spend time apart in the book).

We are looking forward to learning more about the 2KG class and sharing our ideas about our read aloud books!

Global Read Aloud: Kickoff Day!

The Global Read Aloud starts today and our class is a part of this awesome project!  This collaborative project was started by a teacher in the United States, Mrs. Pernille Ripp.  Her idea was to use books to connect people all over the world.  This year, over 500,000 participants will be reading and learning together, sharing author studies and books selected for the 2015 Global Read Aloud! 

The Global Read Aloud (GRA) author we are studying is Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  Using technology such as Skype and Twitter, we will work together with other classrooms to learn and share.  This is a great opportunity to develop our skills in so many areas.  Not only will we be building our literacy skills, but we will also practice skilled communication, learn about other communities and people, explore digital citizenship and more!

Today, we kicked off with our very first Skype in the Classroom call!  We met Mrs. Grodek's first grade class from Brooklyn, Ohio and had the chance to ask them some questions.  It was exciting to meet our first GRA partners! We found out about their community and we noticed some similarities and differences between our communities.  Our class practiced active listening when Mrs. Grodek's students answered our questions. 

Before the call, we decided on some Skype rules for our class: 

 

Then, we used Bing maps to find out where Brooklyn is and how far it is from our school!  

 

 It was a great Skype call and a great kickoff to the GRA!

Kids Who Code: Scratch Jr. Tutorials

The Kids Who Code project continues in our classroom.  My grade 2s have become proficient coders using a number of student-friendly coding tools.  We wanted to help others learn to use Scratch Jr., especially our Kids Who Code partner classrooms - Mrs. Lowe's Class & Mrs. Caldwell's class.  Since these students are in Kindergarten, my students tried to pick coding activities that would help them learn about numbers, letters and colours.  Students chose the learning activities they would like to design tutorials for and they used Book Creator to develop their instructions.  Here are the finished products: 

How to Change the Background Color
by Wyat & Peyton

Video: http://youtu.be/UpvFkg-SzS0
PDF instructions: http://1drv.ms/1Fgs35y


How to Create a Picture using Scratch Jr. 
by Addison, Sev & Martin

Video: https://youtu.be/zMUnjo4VuGc
PDF Instructions: http://1drv.ms/1bsRD9w



How to Code a Character to Count - Recording
by Haily, Connor & Charlie

Video: https://youtu.be/A-wnqxgWOvM
PDF instructions: http://1drv.ms/1K2ETpo


How to Code a Character to Count - Speech Bubble
by Kylynn

Video: http://youtu.be/_XkFELylp7o
PDF instructions: http://1drv.ms/1EIIrp0



How to Code a Character to say a favourite colour - Recording
by Landon & Jaxen

Video: https://youtu.be/Ci5_lJF16-o
PDF instructions:http://1drv.ms/1HddW1e



How to Code a Character to say the Alphabet - Recording
by Kayleigh, Madison & Sarah


Video: http://youtu.be/SA_evLnwMC4
PDF instructions: http://1drv.ms/1Eudi9G


How to Code a Character to say the Alphabet -Speech Bubble
by Camryn

Video: https://youtu.be/4VN8rWNUEvU
PDF Instructions: http://1drv.ms/1zWdRNk

Making Connections Across the Country

Collaboration is very important in our classroom.  We work together within our classroom walls and also reach out to other classrooms around the world to learn together, share our work and find out more about other people and places!

There are some important reasons why I believe this kind of collaboration is so important for my young learners:

• learning about other communities, traditions, cultures and lifestyles
• generating good questions to find out more about others
• active listening to learn about others and answer our questions
• being able to understand a question and provide an answer as a part of oral or written communication
• learning how to use technology to work with others (which is now common in our everyday lives and in many careers)
• fostering teamwork
• learning geography - we often use mapping to find out where our partner classrooms are located, how far away they are from our location and how long it would take to drive to them
• meeting curricular outcomes - often our collaborative work leads to learning projects which give authentic contexts for teaching and learning in various subject areas

Last week, we had the opportunity to meet a new classroom of friends from Milton, Ontario.  Ms. Dorland put out a request through the Microsoft Canada Education group on Yammer asking for other Grade 2 classrooms who would be willing to help her and her class with a special project.  I sent a message asking for more details and eventually we set a date for our classes to meet.

We were really excited to help these new learning partners with their first video conference call and we could definitely tell how excited they were to meet us!  Ms. Dorland's Grade 2s had lots of interesting questions to ask us and we had some questions for them too.  We couldn't quite fit all of our questions in, so we've continued communicating using Twitter.  My students were able to use our classroom tablets to "show" Ms. Dorland's class our playground - something they were curious about on our call.  Students worked with a partner to photograph something on our playground and compose a short message to send from our class Twitter account. 

Our class is finding it very interesting to learn about the weather, community, stores and even the playground in Milton.  We have found that there are lots of things we have in common, but also some differences too.  We are glad to work with some new people and we look forward to continuing the connection!

Tips from Kathy Cassidy

As a part of the Awakening Possibilities Conference, we attended a great session by Kathy Cassidy @kathycassidy  Her presentation links are here. 


Kathy's ideas for using Skype and Twitter in your classroom:

• Mystery number Skype
• Reading buddies via video conference
• Readers theatre performances
• Measurement - predict which is heavier/lighter and find out with Skype buddies
• Bringing in an expert or an author
• Learn from other classrooms via Tweets
• Write a collaborative story using a Twitter Hashtag
• Live Tweet an event or presentation
• Challenge others:  Kathy's class did a snow clothes challenge to see how fast people could get dressed in their winter clothes!

How we have used Skype and Twitter in our classroom:

• Presentation from an expert: During our Olympics project, we had an Olympic torch bearer from the 2012 games as a guest speaker via Skype.
• Collaboration:  The Grade 1s work with the OLCS Kindergartens throughout the school year.  We complete projects together, do learning activities together and share things we are proud of! 
• Making Connections:  During our Olympics project, we could interact with real Olympians!  We really enjoyed asking them questions, seeing their pictures and messages and learning more about them.  We also interact with other classrooms.
• Sharing:  We Tweet all kinds of learning: students write math story problems and wait for our Twitter friends to answer, we summarize key points from our reading, we ask questions to find out more. 
• Making Changes:  We encourage others to take action when we are working on a project to make a difference (for example, our Twitter friends are helping with  Track Your Trash and One Hour, No Power ).

Kathy shared useful resources such as:
Projects By Jen
Skype an Author
Skype in the Classroom
ePals
KidBlog
edublogs