Skype-a-thon 2016

On November 30th, our grade 1 class took part in the 2016 Skype-a-thon global learning event!  We were honoured to be selected for a call with special guest speaker, Ms. Toni Townes-Whitley.  Ms. Townes-Whitley is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Worldwide’s Public Sector.  We read one of our favourite poems "Pets for Sale" for her to start the video call.  Then, she answered our questions about her job, her community (Redmond, Washington) and her life. She also had lots of questions for us.   We discussed our successful Books for Guatemala garage sale and our upcoming plans to host the third annual Kids Who Code Code-a-thon.  It was a very special experience to have such an important leader take time to talk to our class!

Skype in the Classroom is an awesome tool that I've been using in education for about eight years.  Besides connecting with guest speakers, I use Skype to support teaching and learning in a variety of other ways, including:

• Skype story time - Shared read alouds between classrooms can be a great way to encourage students to talk to each other about books.  We have also shared student-created books via Skype so students could reach a real audience outside of the classroom and get feedback on their writing!
• Global Read Aloud - Classrooms around the world read the same book(s) and connect to discuss the books, share ideas and work together! 
• Mystery Number Skype - Guess a Skype partner classroom's mystery number using yes or no questions, while fostering some great math thinking! 
• Collaborative projects- We often use Skype as a "meeting tool" to work with other classes when planning and executing collaborative projects such as the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon, our Maker Faire and Yoga Festival and the Marvelous Muffins fundraiser.

Books for Guatemala Garage Sale: Thanks for your support!

The grade 1 class hosted a successful garage sale fundraiser on November 21st, raising $171!  We would like to thank everyone who helped us and supported our garage sale!  This grade 1 project was in support of a Global Read Aloud Gives Back project to benefit El Buen Samaritano community center in Jocotenango, Guatemala. Our profits will be used to buy books for their center.  

Grade 1 students and their families volunteered to work shifts at the garage sale during our parent-student-teacher interview day.  The grade 1s did a great job of collecting used toys, books and clothes to donate for the sale.  I think it is really special that my students chose to sell some of their belongings to help others!

When we were back in class on Tuesday morning, we were excited to count up our money.  The grade 1s counted how many of each type of coin and bill, printed the numbers for each and then counted by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 20s to determine the subtotal for each.  To calculate our grand total, a small group worked together using base ten blocks representing the dollar amounts.  Once we determined how much we had raised, our class selected books from the book drive fundraiser page and ordered them for the students in Guatemala. 

 

Books for Guatemala Garage Sale

As I explained in this post, our grade 1 class is hosting a garage sale fundraiser in support of the Global Read Aloud book drive for El Buen Samaritano community center in Jocotenango, Guatemala.  We would like to invite any local blog readers to support us by coming to shop on Monday.  If you are interested in personally supporting the cause, visit the Palms & Souls organization website or the GRA Gives Back Book Drive site. 

Books for Guatemala Garage Sale : Our First Project

Our class took part in the Global Read Aloud (GRA) this year.  This year, the Global Read Aloud is partnering with a nonprofit organization, called Palms & Souls,  to organize a book drive for a school/community center in Jocotenango, Guatemala. Each year, I provide opportunities for students to engage in project-based learning that addresses real-world problems or makes a difference for others.  When I read about the partnership between GRA and Palms & Souls, I thought it could be a great starting point for a Grade 1 project.   I decided to tell my grade 1s about how students participating in GRA were working together to help students in Guatemala.  We were even able to "meet" some of the kids there by reading about them on the GRA blog!

When it was put to a class vote, the grade 1s decided that they would be interested in contributing to the book drive.  We began by brainstorming ways to fundraise and, once we decided on holding a garage sale, we created a to-do list to guide our project.  We decided to hold the garage sale during parent-teacher-student interviews, so that many families would already be coming to the school.  One of our next tasks was to ask our families for help.  We completed the letter to our families as a shared writing activity and I added a short teacher message and sign-up form to the note before students took the letter home. 

GRA founder, Pernille Ripp, shared the following information on her blog:

"Who is behind Palms & Souls?

Educator, Reidun Bures...and her husband Ryan,  traveled to Guatemala for their honeymoon in 2014, never dreaming that they would end up founding a nonprofit. They write, “We spent a week volunteering at El Buen Samaritano community center in Jocotenango. The community center provides healthy meals, primary education, tutoring, school supplies, and a safe place to play for 60 students. We left the center with a sense of awe and love for all they were doing. But we were also disturbed after seeing the enormous barriers these people faced to bettering their own situations.”

What is the problem in Jocotenango?

In Guatemala, school is only compulsory through 6th grade. Less than 40% of students make it past middle school. Our nonprofit, Palms and Souls, is committed to changing that narrative.  We are partnering with El Buen Samaritano to help them meet some basic needs of the students, but so much more is needed.  These kids need the one tool that has been shown to improve overall academic performance and lead to enriching lives. They need books!"

Ripp, P. (2016, August 18). Global Read Aloud. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from https://theglobalreadaloud.com/2016/08/18/major-announcement-the-global-read-aloud-gives-back-gra16/

Our first book: Is this a ball?

The grade 1s published their first shared writing book today!  We read "Is this a moose?" by Jenny Armstrong and used her book as a model text for our own writing.  First, we began by brainstorming possible topics for our book.  There were a lot of good ideas, but we narrowed it down to 3 topics and voted.  Once we decided to write our book about toys, then we brainstormed some toys we could include in the book.  Since we wanted to have photographs of each toy, we had to make a plan for that too.  We took pictures of any toys we had at school and then some of us took notes home to get our families to help us.  Once we had all of the photographs, we began to write the words for each page of the book.  Each day we would read our writing as a class, then add the writing for the next page.  When we were done writing, we printed off a copy to keep in our classroom and we also made a digital book to share online.  You can flip the pages in our book by clicking here or watch the version below!

Hack the Classroom: September 2016

I was very fortunate to be invited to present at Microsoft's first Hack the Classroom event in January 2016.  It was an inspiring event that involved thousands of educators from around the globe, so I was really excited to register as an online attendee for this fall's event!  With a line-up of passionate presenters sharing today, Hack the Classroom again inspired me.  I'm excited to see what another year will bring in our connected classroom!

John Kao of Edgemakers shared about his passion for innovation in education.  According to their website, "EdgeMakers offers an interdisciplinary practice-based and purpose driven, challenge- and project-based learning system currently delivered to students in grades 5-8, high school, and institutions of higher learning in The United States, Brazil, Colombia and India. It consists of five core courses..."

What is innovation?

Kao asserts that innovation is "developing capabilities to achieve a desired future" which means we need to narrow the gap between what students are learning in school and what they will need to be successful in their futures. 


What if the world's young people learned how to be innovators and entrepreneurs?
At Edgemakers, they ""assert that the idealism and passion of the young are one of the most underutilized resources on the planet."


I strongly agree with Kao's belief that young people can make a contribution to the world and solving our problems.  As an educator, I think an important role of education is to foster the development of citizenship skills.  I make an effort in my own classroom to let students tackle real world problems that they have identified as important and encourage them to take on projects that help others.  Some such projects have included teaching others to code, purchasing school supplies for a partner school in Africa, volunteering at an animal rescue, promoting sustainability with reusable bag use and reducing our classroom trash.  

Lauren Pittman is using the OneNote learning tools to help her students with special needs become more successful readers.  I am definitely going to be investigating these tools further after watching this powerful video featuring her classroom!



Dyane Smokoroski is a Microsoft Expert Educator and Skype Master Teacher.  She believes that teachers are in the business of inspiring students.  She uses Skype to play Mystery Skype, connect with experts and take her students on virtual field trips.  She even took us on a brief Skype virtual field trip to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences! 

Dyane also allows students from all over the world to showcase their creativity through her Awesome Squiggles collaborative art project.  Registration is closed for this year, but I'm looking forward to "unofficially" trying the project with students and sharing it through social media!

Patricia Romero is using Minecraft to engage her learners at the American Institute of Monterrey .   She shared her tips for using Minecraft in the classroom:

• don't be afraid
• start small
• get organized
• plan ahead
• empower students
• set rules
• build a team
• share work
• grow your program

The 2016 Skype-a-thon is coming up on November 29th and 30th.  Sign up to connect your classroom!

Check out the Hack the Classroom Sway and sign up to watch the recorded webinar on the Hack the Classroom event website. 

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!