WORLD READ ALOUD DAY!!! (Technically world read aloud day was on February 1st but we celebrated on the 31st.)
We had the wonderful opportunity to work with two different classes today. First up:
Green Springs Elementary just outside of Kansas City, Kansas.
Both our class and Ms. Horvey's class listened intently to their reading of
Rescue Jessica, A Life-Changing Friend
By Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes
Rescue Jessica is about a young girl who lost both her legs. With the help of a service dog, she regained independence and had a true best friend. The author of this story, wrote the book based on her experience after the bombing of the Boston Marathon. Both her and her husband lost both their legs during the attack on the marathon.
In return, we read:
The Absolutely Awful Alphabet - each student took a turn with a letter of the alphabet which demonstrates both descriptive word choices and alliteration.
Secondly, we had the opportunity to read a story to a Grade 4 class in Flemington, New Jersey.
5 students took turns reading different pages of the book:
Billy's Booger is about a young boy who has a wild imagination. He was a "challenging" student and had difficulties with school. However one day he entered a writing challenge. His imagination took off and what he produced was a story about a super booger.
Today we quickly met with our pals in Ontario to discuss our read aloud before Christmas. We suggested they read Swindle and we read Freak the Mighty. During our hangout, we discussed parts of the stories we enjoyed, things that made us interested or intrigued, parts that were sad etc. Finally we ended the discussion with a comparison. Although both stories are extremely different, they do have one common point. Both stories have friends who are polar opposites, who on the surface may appear a little different, but yet they are friends who are loyal, who would put their life on the line for their friends. We look forward to working with this class again when we start our next read aloud!
January 16, 2019
Today we received our first postcard from our "post card challenge". Before Christmas, students chose 24 different classrooms all over the world to send a postcard describing life in Lethbridge. We are so excited to share that our first postcard comes all the way from Israel. Their postcard describes the climate, religions/cultures, specific land features and a little about their international school.
January 2019
Before Christmas, we participated in a survey about traditional Christmas practices in Lethbridge. The survey was complied into our book outlining traditions from a few specific countries: Russia (Moscow), Mexico (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) , Canada (us!), and USA (Dallas, Texas)
December 3, 2018
Unfortunately we did not have time for a full Mystery location hangout today, but we did manage to squish in some time to chat with a class from just outside Dallas, Texas. We spent a few minutes sharing interesting facts about our school, city, province/state.
Did you know that in Dallas, Texas, they haven't had a significant snow fall in over 5 years, and by significant I mean 2 inches of snow?! When the temperature drops below 35 degrees Fahrenheit, students remain inside as it is deemed too cold to be outside. (35 degrees is close to 2 degrees Celsius for us.) Today we learned that the state food in Texas is chili, and their state tree is a pecan tree .
Grade 4 students from Hillside Academy for Excellence
Garland, Texas
November 26, 2018
Finally we completed a mystery hangout with another Canadian class. After asking many questions, we found their location of Lemington, Ontario.
Grade 4 class from St. Louis School
Lemington, Ontario, Canada
November 16, 2018
Today we met with a grade 4 class in northern Ontario to discuss novels. We shared interesting facts about each of our locations and then discussed books we have previously read.
Caylin read a blurb she had written about Swindle by Gordon Korman, and the other class read information about Freak the Mighty. At the end, students shared some of their favorite novels with the other class. We will meet again in December after we've read each others suggested book to discuss what we liked/disliked etc.
English Catholic Central School Location
Grade 4
New Liskeard, Ontario
Month of October
Throughout the month of October, our grade 4 class was busy building and writing about MONSTERS! As a group of 5, students had specific materials in which they were to build a monster. Once the building was complete, students were expected to write a descriptive paragraph about their monster. We then sent our paragraphs off to another grade 4 class and in return we got paragraphs from them! Once we received the writing, students then had to set about in their groups again to build another monster by reading directions and descriptions from another class. I absolutely loved this project. Students were engaged, focused and really worked hard to add as much detail to their own writing. On October 26, we completed a hangout with that class to share our monsters and give feedback on our writing in order to improve for next time. Enjoy!
Building Monsters
Cuddles
Gracie
One Eyed Spongebob
Bob
Wally
Zelda Beast
Pumpkin Master
One Eyed Man
October 22, 2018
Our second attempt at a mystery number was a huge success. Again using great questioning techniques, we were able to find their three digit number rather quickly.
Watula, Florida
October 17, 2018
For our very first Mystery Number hangout, we had the greatest opportunity to work with a grade 4 class in Carolstream, Illinois. During this hangout, students demonstrated their number sense skills by asking specific questions to determine their mystery number! Great work grade 4's!
Carolstream, Illinois
October 17, 2018
We were extremely lucky to complete another hangout today! This time it was a mystery location hangout. Using specific questions such as bodies of water (specifically the Atlantic ocean), our class was able to narrow down their state rather quickly. This was a grade 4 class in Hinesville, Georgia. We learned that their town is a military town where many of their parents are deployed.
Taylor's Creek Elementary
Hinesville, Georgia
September 28, 2018
Today we had the opportunity to chat with a class in Mentor, Ohio. The grade 5 class from Hopkins Elementary were well prepared and shared many interesting facts about their state and city. We learned a lot about Lake Erie, as well as the various professional sports teams within their state. Mentor, Ohio is approximately a 25 minute drive from Cleveland.
Gavin asking a question Loved their "Thinking" Page
Grade 5 Class
Hopkins Elementary
Mentor, Ohio
September 19, 2018
The most recent mystery hangout was with a gifted grade 5 class. Their location was a little trickier as we tried to narrow down to their exact town and find their school. It took quite a few questions, but again, we were able to find our new friends!
Grade 5, Danville, PA, USA
September 18, 2018
Today we stayed a little closer to home. Students however we unaware that we were chatting with a class in Edmonton, Alberta. However, with great questioning, again we were able to lock down their location incredibly fast!
Grade 5 from Edmonton, Alberta
September 12, 2018
Today we completed our very first Mystery Hangout. Students each logged on to google maps, where they had to use their knowledge of mapping skills to ask questions in order to narrow down a specific location. The questions were fantastic, which allowed us to find their location rather quickly. Great job grade 4's!!!
Grade 6 class from Monon, Indiana
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March 2, 2017 - Dr. Seuss' Birthday!!
Today we had an opportunity to talk with a class from Anchorage, Alaska. We shared many interesting facts about Dr. Seuss, discussed our favorite books, characters and famous quotes.
I found it quite amusing how regardless of where we are in the world, students are so similar! We had to stop our hangout for a few moments in order to let both classes "dab" for one another! It was so much fun.
During our hangout, we shared interesting facts about Alberta, and in return, our new pals shared some interesting facts about Alaska. Here is what we learned:
* There are no roads to MANY of the towns in Alaska. A lot of the towns have to be reached by plane.
* During the summer, the sun NEVER sets. WOW!
* There are 70 active volcanoes in Alaska.
* There are over 3,000,000 lakes in Alaska.
* There are more glaciers in Alaska than anywhere else in the world. Over 100,000 glaciers.
* Each year, Alaska experiences approximately 5 000 earthquakes.
January 18, 2017
It's been a little while since our global connections hangout. It was a busy Christmas season, which unfortunately meant we had to reschedule a few of our hangouts. Today, we had an opportunity to chat with our pals in Dallas, Texas again. We are planning on working with this class to complete various writing and reading projects. During our hangout today, we had an opportunity to listen to many interesting facts about their city and state. In return, we had four groups of students share research information about our country, province, city and school.
Bobbi and Charlotte describing interesting facts about Canada!
(According to these two ladies, did you know that 1. Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world? 2. Canada sells and consumes more macaroni and cheese than any other country?)
Hayley and Justin sharing information about Alberta!
(Did you know that Alberta was named after Queen Victoria's fourth daughter?)
Mia and Faith telling many interesting facts about Lethbridge!
(Did you know that Lethbridge used to be called Coalbanks?)
Kaiden and Benson discussing our AMAZING school, Mike Mountain Horse!!!
(Do you know anything about Mike Mountain Horse? He is a war veteran and a writer! He was a member of the Blood Tribe and worked with the Canadian Pacific Railway.)
We learned MANY things about Dallas, Texas; but I think the two facts our students were most intrigued in:
1. Last week they had about 1/8th of an inch of snow, which caused the entire city to shut down.
2. They have a state fair every year. Part of the fair is a massive statute of "Big Tex". He has burned down two times already. Here is what Big Tex looks like.
We look forward to chatting with this class again and getting started on our first collaborative writing project!
December 6, 2016
We had such an incredible mystery location hangout today. Finally we found a class in Canada! Yes it was exciting to work with another Canadian class, but what made today's hangout so special and unique was the fact that they are a French Immersion Grade 3/4 Class. Clearly students at MMH do not start core french until grade 4. However at the moment we have such an incredible resource at our fingertips - Ms. Neigum. She was a french immersion student and her hopes and goal is to become a french immersion teacher. Today she was our translator!! The students asked questions while Ms. N translated. In the process they picked up some new french words to add to their vocabulary. What a terrific learning opportunity! Today's hangout was even more exciting as not only did we find their province, but we then used google maps to find their city and even narrowed it down to find their exact school. The students of 3B truly never cease to amaze me. Enjoy the videos below.
December 5, 2016
For the remainder of the year, we will be working with another class doing various writing, reading and math projects. Before we jump into collaborating with this class, we completed a mystery location hangout to find out where in the world they are. We had a few technical difficulties, but despite it all, we were able to find their city/state with ease! Before we even found their state, Tyson had guessed their city. Way to go dude!
3rd Grade class from Hyer Elementary School
Dallas, Texas
November 28, 2016
Today we received our second batch of PenPal Letters!!! Our class will have four different penpals throughout the year. Our penpals today come to us from the beautiful state of Florida. Their class has 19 students, therefore we are budding up to respond. With their letters, the class attached photos of themselves, a drawing as well as the letter. They also sent us "trinkets". We received seashells, dolphin necklaces and flip flop key chains. We are in the process of responding!!!
An example of the penpal letters we received from a class in Florida.
We have also sent off penpal letters to a class in Colorado and RUSSIA!!! How exciting! Our writing skills and global awareness will be top notch by the end of the school year!
It was a busy day for hangouts today! The first hangout was with a grade 4 class (location unknown as we are waiting to do a mystery location hangout soon). This was a mystery number hangout. Their teacher has blogged about the experience. If you have a moment, I recommend you check it out as it sum's up the mystery number activity perfectly! Mystery Number Skype Makes Learning Stick
What I absolutely loved about today's hangout was that students who do not normally want to volunteer to ask questions on camera, all jumped at the opportunity to do so! They were so confident and engaged!
November 22, 2016
The second hangout today was with a grade 3 class in New Hampshire. Our grade 1 reading buddies joined us as we shared our favorite books with this class. Many students volunteered to read a book recommendation to our friends in New Hampshire and vice versa. We were able to get new ideas of some interesting books that we can add to our classroom library!
Grade 3 students from Pellham Elementary, New Hampshire
November 21, 2016 ~ Connected Readers Club
Today was our final connected readers club hangout. We are finished Loser :( It was such a fun and exciting experience. Throughout the entire book, students were engaged and hanging on to every word. The discussions we had surrounding this book was amazing. What I personally love is how Loser brought up ideas about including everyone, being kind, not judging someone by simply looking at them, "Buddy Bench" and incorporating everyone, being brave and imaginative, and simply just being you! We are so glad that we got to work with our pals in Kansas City. Their questions each week made us really think deeply about the book.
Our final chat with Mr.DeLoach's Grade 3 class in Kansas City.
Faith chatting with her new pals. Our reflections on Loser
November 16, 2016 ~ Connected Readers Club
We are almost finished with Loser by Jerry Spinelli. It's been so much fun!! What an absolutely incredible book. Our second last hangout with Mr. DeLoach's class in Kansas City focused on two aspects:
Our class spent some time trying to draw our favorite character. There are no pictures in Loser, therefore students had to draw based on what pictures pop into their head as I read. Once students were finished their drawing, they had to write a minimum of 5 sentences describing their character, focusing on specific character traits.
Some examples:
Zinkoff ~ messy (because his legibility is horrible), proud (even though he is messy, he is proud of it), imaginative (creates random tasks for himself), a huge heart (cares about everyone, even those he does not know), adventurous (tries to challenge himself and take on an adventure), lonely (he doesn't have any friends and no one will talk to him), determined (wants to be a mailman like his dad and will even make his own letters to deliver to people), kind (always says hello and shares a smile with anyone he passes)
Waiting Man ~ mysterious (because he is always waiting for his lost brother and we don't know anything else about him.)
Polly ~ playful (wants to play with Zinkoff), helpful and dependable (was the alarm for when Zinkoff tried to leave his house after surgery), funny (makes funny sounds and faces)
Andrew ~ both nice and mean (sometimes he is nice to Zinkoff and other times he pretends Zinkoff doesn't exist), grumpy (very angry and grumpy after losing his soccer game), dishonest (possibly stole Zinkoff's soccer trophy)
Mr. DeLoach's class focused on asking "deep questions". Questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no answer. Their questions were fantastic and really made our students think deeply about the book in order to answer the questions. Great job Mr. DeLoach's class!! You really kept us thinking today!
November 14, 2016
Today we completed a mystery location hangout. Our class asked exceptional questions and found the other classes location with ease!
Finding their location Learning some interesting facts
Looking at a bird's eye view of their school Meeting their class pet
Grade 5's from Milstone Elementary, New Jersey!
October 26, 2016 ~ Connected Reader's Club
We met with our Kansas City Reading Pals again today to discuss chapters 12-16 of the book Loser. I am always amazed with the types of questions and responses our students create. Way to go guys!!
October 19, 2016 ~ Connected Reader's Club
Today we met with our reading pals in Kansas City to discuss the book Loser by Jerry Spinelli. We have read so far up to chapter 12. During our hangout today, students had the opportunity to both ask and answer questions about the story. The amazing part of the today's hangout, was listening to both the questions being asked and their responses. Without any prompting from me, students created their own questions. I was blown away by the level of thinking and questions posed during the hangout. Our students not only asked basic recall questions, but pushed the limits a little by asking much higher level thinking questions. Way to go Grade 3's - you never cease to amaze me !!
Grade 3, from William Southern Elementary
Kansas City
Stay tuned for our next hangout this upcoming week!
October 18, 2016
We completed another Mystery Number hangout today. The class was from San Antoino, Texas. With some strategic questions we were able to find their number pretty quick!
Grade 3's from Hardy Oak Elementary
San Antonio, Texas
We played Rock-Paper-Scissor to see who would go first. Tyson represented our class!!
Once we discovered the number, we had a chance to ask a few questions about each other's school and community. Our new pals in Texas have a class pet. his name is Andy the Hamster.
October 12, 2016
Today was our very first Mystery Number hangout!! We actually completed our mystery number hangout today with a special education High school class from Laguna Beach High School, California. How mystery number works: we chose a number from 0-1000, as did the other class. We take turns asking questions in attempts to find the mystery number. Our number was 589 and Laguna Beach High School students chose 444 as their mystery number. I am so proud of the questions the students asked and their excitement and participation in this activity. It was also amazing to watch the high school students interact with our grade 3's. They too were excited when they found our mystery number and equally as excited for our class when we found their number. Looking forward to more mystery number hangouts in the future!
High School Class from Laguna Beach High School, California
October 7, 2016
We finally had an opportunity today to find the location of a class we talked with last week. Within 10 minutes, our class had determined their location. I am amazed at how well their mapping skills has improved, and how they are able to form very specific questions. Great job grade 3's!!! You always amaze me!
3rd Grade, Gifted Class
from Oconee County, Georgia, USA.
October 6, 2016
Today we completed a mystery hangout with.... Mrs. Barker's Class!!! That's right, our neighbors! Each class chose a location within Canada, and used our amazing mapping skills to find the location. Our location was Quebec City, Quebec, while Mrs. Barker's class had chosen Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Mrs. Barker's Class, Mike Mountain Horse
Lethbridge, Alberta
September 28, 2016
We actually met two different classes today. The first class was from Evergreen Park, Illinois. The other class unfortunately we did not have time to find their location. We will be rescheduling a time next week.
Northeast Elementary School, Evergreen Park, Illinois
September 22, 2016
Today we completed our second mystery hangout. Unfortunately the laptops were already in use, therefore we had to go "old school" and use a page from an Atlas. Mrs. Barker's class joined us for our hangout today. With over 50 students in the classroom, it was a little loud but we were still able to find our pals!
Grade 2 Class from Birmingham, Alabama
September 21, 2016
We completed our first mystery location hangout today. I was absolutely amazed at the creative and interesting questions our students were able to ask. Our Mystery Location Pals were from Elkins, Arkansas.
Grade 5 Class from Elkins, Arkansas, USA
September 15, 2016
Today we completed our first global connections hangout! We had an opportunity to talk with a Grade 3 class in Arizona about Dot Day. We discussed our favorite parts about the book "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds. Some of our responses were:
- when Vashiti made a dot out of dots
- when the teacher framed her dot art work, it must have made her feel good
- when Vashiti asked a little boy to sign his "line" art work. She made him feel like he could do anything.
- all of the amazing dots that Vashiti made
We then discussed what we did for dot day (see main blog for our centers).
Finally, we had an opportunity to ask and answer questions about where we live. Our pals in Arizona were quite excited to hear that we were located in Canada. They told us that it rarely rains and it never snows. They are located in the middle of the dessert, where they have rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, rabbits, coyotes and more.
Grade three Class from Four Peaks Elementary,
Apache Junctions, Arizona
April 27, 2016
We have finally linked our global connections to our blog. Today we responded to our e-pals in Fayette, Iowa. We will be chatting with and sharing our learning with this grade 4 class over the next few weeks.
April 20, 2016
We had an opportunity to complete a second mystery location hangout today with a fourth grade class in Irvington, New York.
We will be connecting with this class as e-pals on our kidblog!
April 19, 2016
Today we had an opportunity to complete another mystery number hangout with a 3rd grade class from Washington, USA. As always, our class asked very specific, wonderful questions and was able to find the mystery number first on both occasions! Great job 3B!
March 17, 2016
Today was the first day we completed a mystery location hangout. We used the laptops and google maps in order to find their location. We unfortunately did not find their city, but we did find their state and a general area of their city. Students took turns asking excellent questions in order to find their location. Some of our questions included:
Do you live in North America?
Do you live in the United States?
Do you live close to the Atlantic Ocean?
Does your state border on Canada?
We then guessed California which was right!
Do you live in the south part of California?
Do you live by any major lakes or rivers?
We then took many guesses on numerous major cities.
Finally we asked are you a smaller community.
We then ran out of time! But what a fun experience!!!
March 16, 2016
Today we had an opportunity to complete another mystery number hangout with a class in Des Plains, Illinois. We found two numbers rather quickly. As a class we also chose two numbers for their grade three class to guess.
The class of Des Plains, is a bilingual class, meaning they speak both English and Spanish. We are hoping to chat again in the future and maybe learn a few words in Spanish.
March 4, 2016
Today we completed our second mystery number activity with a class from Michigan. Blake chose the number 335 for the other class to guess. I am so impressed with how fast our class was able to guess their mystery number. We are forming excellent questions and using our knowledge of number to find a mystery number.
February 26, 2016
Today was our first Mystery Number hangout with a grade 5 class in New Jersey. Mr. Jesse's class joined in on the fun as we formed questions and tried to guess the mystery number. We were able to find the mystery number first!! What a fun experience.
February 25, 2016
Today was our first Global Connections experience. Our grade three class, participated in a Google Hangout with a class in Westmount, Illinois. We shared a read aloud with their class and vice versa.
We read:
The other class shared a story with us:
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