Global Read Aloud Learning

The 7 Peter Reynolds stories that we read during the project.

The Peter Reynold's author study has come to an end and our class reflected today on what we learned throughout the project! We chatted in small groups and participated in mini talking circles to share what we learned and what our favourite parts were. Students reflected on the 7 Peter Reynold's books we read over the past few weeks. We used the stories to inspire our writing and our creative ideas in many ways. We got to share and tweet with many different classes and we participated in Google Hangouts with some classes too.

The students really enjoyed getting to read differing perspectives. We shared a lot of our learning online using many different apps and on Twitter. The study allowed us to demonstrate our digital citizenship as we modelled what safe and kind online practices looked like. We benefitted from our class tech experts who were great leaders and showed us how to post and share our ideas on apps like AudioBoom, 30 Hands, Padlet Twitter and more!

One highlight from the study was when Peter Reynolds replied to one of our tweets! We had been sharing with him what we were learning and one day tweeted him our Part 2 ideas to his story North Star. We were surprised to see that he replied to our message with a Huge Twitter Secret.

Don't tell anyone, @MrsCiampaClass but I have written the first draft of the sequel to THE NORTH STAR #GRA14 http://t.co/S50P7gNq6R
— Peter H. Reynolds (@peterhreynolds) October 14, 2014

Twitter is amazing for connecting us with the author of this study. The students were so pleased that he could read our tweets and they wondered if any of their North Star part 2 ideas inspired the real part 2 of the book. We hope to read his Part 2 story soon so that we could find out!!

Participating in this Global project has demonstrated the power of online collaboration and the connections you can make from shared learning opportunities. We regularly chatted with many other classrooms (Mrs. King's Grade 3, Mrs. Caluori's Grade 3 and Mrs. Mason's Grade 1/2) and learned from one another. We reflected on safe and kind digital practices during Digital Citizenship week and students made connections with our Global Read Aloud experiences.

We hope that you have enjoyed this journey just as much as we have!

Below, students posted some of their learning from the project using the 30 Hands iPad app. Have a listen to what we learned and what we loved about participating in the author study. A huge thank you to the organizers of the Global Read Aloud Project as well as to Peter Reynold's himself for inspiring us through his wonderful stories. Through this project, my students have grown to understand what it means to show grit, be creative and use your imagination. We hope that our learning below inspires you too!