October Has Come and Gone

This week, we began with Genius Hour and beginning to wrap up our narrative polished pieces, then finished our Global Read Aloud book - The One and Only Ivan. I think this is best represented in the video below...This week, we began with Genius Hour and beginning to wrap up our narrative polished pieces, then finished our Global Read Aloud book - The One and Only Ivan. I think this is best represented in the video below...
Next week, we'll continue to polish our narratives as we head into November!! (Sneak peek - reading Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse, using our Readers' Notebooks and WEX writing together...)

Skyping About The One and Only Ivan

This week was full... but our most exciting day was the day we were able to Skype with three classes in Canada (one in each of our classes here!). We asked a couple of questions about The One and Only Ivan, as each of these classes is on the Weebly that was set up to discuss this book, and they are reading the same pages we are each week. However, students really wanted to know more about their schools in general. We found out about recess, having two teachers for the day, French classes, and more!

We also touched base on WHY we were Skyping... it is NOT to "waste class time." It is a valuable use of time, if we are to learn about other kids around the globe. It was impressed upon the class that we need to learn about other people and find out their backgrounds, in order to understand why they do what they do, and in order to avoid conflicts. The stress this week is on communication - give and take.

Included in the week - visualization while reading, asking questions to ourselves about what we have read, writing about what we've read, and we also wrote more for our narrative. In fact, on Friday, we began the prompt that will lead to our polished piece for narrative writing.

Our Cardboard Challenge

What a week we've just gone through!

Since we'd finished Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, we wrote reflections about it - students had 20 choices about which to write! You'll find these on our student blogs (see tab above). In addition, we began the Global Read Aloud and read 74 pages of The One and Only Ivan! Ivan's "voice" is very much his own, and we can tell what type of silverback gorilla he is.

We had a visitor last week - Miss Tillander. She helped us figure out how to take notes for our monument projects in social studies. And, of course, we had Genius Hour on Monday. But I think students' most favorite part of the week was Thursday, when we completed the cardboard challenge set by Caine Monroy of Caine's Arcade. Students were productive, creative, and very cooperative! Some reflections from the day will be on our blogs, but students are turning them in in various forms. But you've GOT to see our video of the day! Enjoy the energy exuding from it!

The Global Read Aloud

HOT NEWS OFF THE PRESS:
Beginning October 1st, our class will be participating in the Global Read Aloud Project! We will be reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (a fantasy narrative!) and sharing our thinking about the book with other classrooms from across the world. We will be connecting on a more frequent basis with classrooms in British Columbia, and Ontario, Canada! How's that for living up to the district mission statement of fostering responsible, caring citizens in a global community? ;-)

We will be using two primary forms of electronic communication - Edmodo and Kidblog. Students will share questions, answers, and thinking informally and formally, on two safe social learning networks designed specifically for classrooms. Students are not able to join groups unless they have been given a code, so only those teachers who have connected with me and shared our code can join our discussion group. In addition, we'll be holding Skype sessions to discuss the book as a class and share activities/projects on which we are working.

Mrs. Kirr is ecstatic about this project and the learning ahead!

Other things going on this coming week...
Monday - Genius Hour - our first grade for independent reading comes from the students themselves
Tuesday - How to extract information from articles, and stake a claim for their social studies monument
Wednesday - Review/reflection of Wonder, by R.J. Palacio
Thursday - The Cardboard Challenge!