Saturday, October 11, 2014

GRA Week 1: The North Star

This week we were so fortunate to begin participating in the Global Read Aloud project. We are participating in an Author Study featuring books by the author Peter H. Reynolds.
As part of the Global Project, students will be connecting and sharing their wonderings and learnings with other classrooms online. This week we received a tweet from a Grade 3 class in our city (Mrs. Caluori's Grade 3) and we replied to her with our connections. We hope to connect with her class more often as we navigate and wonder over the course of this author study project .
The first story in the author study was The North Star. The story is about a boy who faces many obstacles along a journey of discovery. Along the way he meets animals who help guide him along his true path. At the end of the story, the boy discovers his true path by following a North Star in the sky.
Students discussed what the story reminded them of by making a list and tweeting ideas. Students had the opportunity to reply to Mrs. Caluori's tweet to explain what they wondered or what connection they could make to the story. Have a read at some of our great ideas.



The author concludes the story with the words "The Beginning".
We had many class discussions about what that means and why the author chose to use those words to end the story. Students wondered if it was the boy's new journey. Students also wondered where the boy was heading to...where would he go next? As a class, we came up with ideas about what Part Two of the The North Star might look like. Students made the connection between part two of a story to the words "To Be Continued..." We discussed how sometimes author's do this when they write another part to a story like in comic books. Students creatively came up with part 2 ideas and wrote some amazing part 2 stories!

Some students had the chance to practice their reading fluency using the app AudioBoom. Have a listen to some of our Part 2 stories:





The stories by Peter H. Reynolds are already inspiring us in many ways. We previously read the story The Dot on International Dot Day and showed our creative side. We are also using his stories to guide our line focus in Visual Art by allowing our creative side to pour out!

Next week in the author study, we will be focusing on the story "I'm Here". We already have a Google Hangout meeting scheduled with another Grade 3 class in our city. Mrs. King's Grade 3 class is also participating in the Global Read Aloud project and we will be discussing our wonderings and our connections together. We can't wait!

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