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!

GRA Week 6: So Few of Me

This week was the 6th and final week of the Global Read Aloud Project. Students wrapped up the project by reading one more book from Peter H. Reynold's collection. So Few of Me is about a boy who wonders if there were more of him...that maybe he could get more work done. Suddenly there are 2, 3,4, and 10 Leo's doing house work and other chores.

 As we read the story the students wondered who all of the boys were in the story. We had a very interesting discussion filled with many possibilities. Students came up with many potential guesses about who all of the extra Leo's might be. We clearly added many words to our personal dictionaries this week. Students had a long discussion about their guesses. Some guesses featured words that some of us had never heard before. We wondered, could the extra Leo's be his doppelganger...his twin....his clone...an illusion...a hologram...a dream?

We were really happy to learn about some of these new words. The Global Read Aloud has taught us so much and now we have added new words to our vocabulary!

If you would like us know what these words mean, ask your child to explain them. You can also send us a tweet on our class Twitter account @MrsCiampaClass and one of our experts can help explain it for you!

HH:I learned the word Doppleganger,illuoisn,hologram,Clone. we raed the book So fear of me #GRA14

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 11, 2014

GRA Week 5: Going Places

This week's read aloud for the Peter H. Reynolds Author Study was the book Going Places. We read the book as part of Week 5 of the project.

Going Places Talking Circle

This week students interacted with the story in many fun ways. After reading the story, students had many personal connections to share. As we chatted, we wondered what the author's message was. We decided to hold a Talking Circle to discuss what Peter Reynolds wanted us to learn or what he wanted to teach us through his book Going Places. Luckily, I was able to capture some of our student's thinking by recording part of our Talking Circle on the AudioBoom app. Have a listen to what some student's believe the author's message was!

listen to ‘going places talking circle’ on audioBoom

Peer-to-Peer Feedback

Students wrote about what they believed Peter Reynolds wanted us to learn from the story. They also added some text-to-text and text-to-self connections as well. We continue to be inspired by the messages in his stories. He continues to inspire us to use our imagination, be creative and show grit even when we feel that something is too challenging or too difficult. Going Places also taught us about the importance of working together, cooperation and to think outside of the box!

Students shared their ideas and had the opportunity to read with partners. This allowed them to share their thinking and receive peer-to-peer feedback. Peer feedback is one of our goals this year. We will be using oral and written peer feedback to help improve our writing and expand our ideas!

Students received Twitter messages from classes who are also participating in the Global Read Aloud.

e.s i learn i don.t have to make stuff the same as the others. #GRA14

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 6, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass we think @peterhreynolds message in "Going Places" was that you can, team up, be creative and do things differently. #gra14
— Mrs.Mason (@MrsMasonOCSB) November 5, 2014

.@MrsMasonOCSB @peterhreynolds TO says: the video is shows grit because thy wrct together and didnt give up . #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 7, 2014

@MrsMasonOCSB @peterhreynolds HH says: I like the video it was nice THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 7, 2014

@MrsMasonOCSB @peterhreynolds wn:I agree with your class because it looks the same as the book going places
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 7, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass We compared the book with this @peterhreynolds video http://t.co/KgOyhZpMA6 - check it out. #GRA14 #GRApeter
— Mrs.Mason (@MrsMasonOCSB) November 5, 2014

One other way that student's interacted with the book this week was through a shared-Padlet with a Grade Three class we have collaborated with before. Students used the AudioBoom app to record themselves reading their connections to the story Going Places. Last year, many students became experts since they used the AudioBoom app all year long. This week, our Tech Experts helped friends who are not familiar with the app. They demonstrated their expertise and helped a friend to record, take a picture and save the AudioBoom recording. We have a number of Tech Experts in our room so we are fortunate that students can leverage their expertise to assist others to become experts on this app too. After recording their AudioBoom, we added our readings to a shared-Padlet with Mrs. King's Grade Three Class. Students in both of our classes shared their connections, predictions and thinking on various iPad apps. Mrs. King's class used Pic Collage and Tellagami on the Padlet. On Friday, we took time to read and listen to the thinking posted on the Padlet. This shared-Padlet allowed our classes to collaborate in a truly interactive way. There are so many great ways to use Padlet. Collaborating with another class provides students with so much rich dialogue and a variety of opinions about what Going Places can mean to different people. 

Created with Padlet

I am very thankful that my students have had the opportunity to participate in this amazing Global Project this far. We only have one more week to go. This project has truly inspired my students and I am happy to see how much they've grown in their learning already!

GRA Week 5 - Shared Padlet

Together with Mrs. King's Grade 3 class, we posted what we thought the Author's Message was from the story Going Places. We read our predictions and our connections on iPad apps such as AudioBoom and Tellagami. We also used Pic Collage to post our thinking on Padlet. This was a shared learning opportunity between our two classes. Students had the chance to read and view the thinking of students in our class and in Mrs. King's class. Click below to listen and read about our ideas!

Created with Padlet

GRA Week 4: Ish & Sky Colour Connections

This week, we completed Week 4 of the Global Read Aloud Project. Hard to believe we are past the 4 week mark already. Students are very engaged in the project and look forward to seeing what new Peter Reynolds story we will read next. This week as we began reading Sky Color (spelled coloUr with a "U" in Canada), students quickly made many text-to-text connections with other books we previously read during this project. Primarily, their text-to-text connections came from the story ISH.

After reading Sky Color, students made many connections to our on-going discussion on showing grit. In the story, they said that Marisol showed grit by not giving up on creating a sky - even when she did not have any blue. We decided to see what skies can look like without using the colour blue. Have a look at our fun sky colour creations!



In Language, our current focus is writing descriptive paragraphs using adjectives. To prepare students with their ideas for writing, we had our first Talking Circle of the year. Our Talk Circle focus was on Explaining our text-to-text connections and agreeing or disagreeing with the ideas shared.

The Talk Circle helped us to listen to the connections of our peers. We explained our ideas and shared our similar or different viewpoints. Ish and Sky Color have many similarities and the Talk Circle helped us to come up with ideas for our paragraph writing. A lot of rich dialogue was shared - excellent job friends!

Students used the Talking Circle to help them write about the text-to-text connections between Sky Color and Ish. They all believed that the stories are similar. We worked hard on our paragraphs. Students are using a paragraph checklist to keep them on track. The checklist helps them to edit their work to see if they have all of the criteria. The paragraph writing format has inspired many students to write detailed sentences. Adding adjectives helps us to be more descriptive.

Some students had the opportunity to share their work with friends. After writing, we read our paragraphs on the iPad app 30 Hands. Students are learning to use this app to create slideshow presentations featuring photos and audio clips of their work. We hope you enjoy our Sky Color and Ish paragraph reading. We are wondering if anyone has similar text-to-text connections like we found? We are also wondering if anyone has different text connections than what we wrote about? Please share with us on our Twitter page!

GRA Week 3: Making Ishful Connections!

This week during the Global Read Aloud Week 3, students had the opportunity to read the great story...ISH! This story by Peter H. Reynolds allowed us to show our creative sides...AGAIN! We explored how to make ishful drawings and we also chatted about Ish connections. 

What does ISH mean? We didn't really know at first. After reading the story, students came up with many different ways to say ISH. Have a look! 

When reading the story, students made text-to-self connections. They noticed that Ramon was not showing grit at the beginning of the story.  He gave up when his brother made fun of his work. Students have been learning how to show grit even when they want to give up, or when a task seems too hard. Here is a link to our GRIT brainstorm from a few days ago. Students are demonstrating that they know how to show GRIT in all parts of their school day. Way to go friends! 

At the end of the story, Ramon demonstrated grit after his sister inspired him to be creative and keep drawing ishful things! Students made their own personal connections and wrote about when they showed grit. We will continue to focus on this important skill as time goes on. Students are working to demonstrate grit in all parts of their day (during a math lesson, when playing a game on the yard, when reading a story, etc).We also had the opportunity to chat with another class on Google Hangout today. We chatted about our connections to the story Ish. Many students got to share their ish drawings and their ish connections that we wrote about. Special thank you to the grade three students in Mrs. Caluori's class. We enjoyed meeting you and can't wait to chat online again. 

Below are some of our Twitter thinking and ishful exchanges after our Hangout today!

Wn an bt says: today we google chat with another gade 3 class!😄
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

jp says: ish menes 5050. #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

NN and AB says:Today on google hangout we talked about grit and our connections on our papers and we explained what grit means.
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

HH:Today we ate pizza and it was yummy and we talked with the grade 3 class we talked about ish .
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass GC says, "Thank you students for being so nice and polite when we met today."
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 24, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass IL says, "It was fun talking "ish" with you." #GRA14
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 24, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass AL says"We had a fun time meeting you. We hope you had a fun time meeting us."
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 24, 2014

GRA Week 2: I'm Here

Our class participated in Week 2 of the Global Read Aloud project. We continue to focus on the author study project featuring books written by Peter H. Reynolds. 

This week's story is called I'm Here. The story is about a little boy who is lonely, playing on the school yard all by himself. We learn how he feels and what he does to keep busy while all other friends are playing. We learn how his imagination helps him to reach out to a friend!

To share and connect using the story this week, we organized a Google Hangout with another Grade 3 class in our city. Mrs. King's Class is a grade 3 class not too far from us. We introduced ourselves and talked about our schools. Some students in our classroom were experiencing a Google Hangout for the first time. We even learned about their school like what a portable is and what kind of earrings their principal wore today!

During our chat, one student in our class recalled how the story reminded her of a previous short video we watched in Religion a few weeks ago. The students made the connection between the friendship video we watched to the book I'm Here. Little did we know...the story I'm Here was the SAME story as the video about friendship we watched! 

As our chat went on, students began to make many connections between Peter Reynolds's books The North Star and I'm Here. We noticed that some of his illustrations were similar. We also noticed that he included a picture of the north star in I'm Here! We thought that was pretty neat. We also shared with Mrs. King's class the Twitter secret we received. Our classes compared North Star Part 2 story ideas. We hope that Peter Reynolds will use some of our cool ideas for the real part 2 that he is writing. Students did an amazing job of listening, sitting quietly and waiting their turn during the video chat. We were happy to meet Mrs. King's class and hope to visit or meet her students one day!

After the chat, we talked about what making connections mean. Students recalled the 3 types of connections we can make to stories (Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self and Text-to-World). We even wrote our own definitions. Some students had the opportunity to build an 'I'm Here' Connection poster. We wrote about our connections to the story I'm Here. Some drew pictures and demonstrated what I'm Here reminded them of. The Grade 3's have wonderful connections to the story. 

ASK YOUR CHILD WHAT KIND OF CONNECTION THEY CAN MAKE TO PETER REYNOLD'S STORY: I'M HERE! Below is a link to the video that we previously watched in Religion. We watched it again to see more connections we could make. 

We are having a wonderful experience with the Global Read Aloud Project so far. Students are getting many opportunities to connect and share their learning. I hope that the next story in the project continues to inspire the students just like the first 2 already have!

A Surprise Twitter Secret!

WOW! We just got an unexpected surprise on Twitter. The author of our Book Study - Peter H. Reynolds sent us a Twitter surprise!! He read our Part 2 stories that we wrote after reading the story The North Star. He let us in on a really cool secret. Have a read at his Twitter message below:

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

How amazing that the author of some famous stories can read our tweets AND send us a message saying how there really will be a Part 2 of the story soon! We were so excited to hear of this special secret. We invited our principal Mme. Paradis to our room today so we could let her in on the surprise secret too.

What a great example of the power that Twitter has! It has already allowed us to connect with other classrooms on shared ideas. Now we've learned that we can connect with REAL AUTHORS of stories we are reading in class. Pretty neat. Ask your child all about this neat Twitter surprise we received from Peter H. Reynolds today.

@peterhreynolds BT says: WOW! In our class we wrote our own part 2 stories of the The North Star!!!!! #GRAPeter!

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 14, 2014

@peterhreynolds RC says: your secret is safe with @MrsCiampaClass !!!! #GRAPeter

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 14, 2014

@peterhreynolds jp says: the othr rote bac to us. It wos col.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 14, 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 .

@MrsCiampaClass @jluss our class would like to ask your class a question. What did you think the story was about? #GRA14
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 6, 2014

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.

BT says: The star reminds me of when Jesus was gating born. #GRA14 #GRAPeter
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2014

FF says & AB say: today we read about a story called the North Star it was about a little boy who went on a journey in the forest. #GRAPeter
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2014

FMF says: the bird flew up to the sky and the boy looked up at the stars! #GRAPeter
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2014

ES jp say: the nonth star he fawnd a star and it ramindid us of a story of baby jesus. #GRA14 #GRApeter
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 8, 2014

MD says: The boy helped the rabbit on the log. He made a boat out of wood! #GRAPeter
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2014

The author concludes the story with the words "The Beginning".

CW says: at the end it says the bigneing. i think it's a new journey. #GRAPeter #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2014

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:

listen to ‘TO reads part 2 of north star’ on audioBoom

listen to ‘EB north star part 2’ on audioBoom

listen to ‘MD part 2 north star’ on audioBoom

listen to ‘AO north star part 2’ on audioBoom

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!

Looking forward to our #GoogleHangout next Thursday @mrskingocsb #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 10, 2014

Lines in Art

For the past few weeks, we have focused on many types of lines in Visual Art. Students have read stories to spark their thinking on the various types of lines around us. As a class we decided on types of lines and named them too. 

We are currently working on a lines project. Students are showing their creativity, following directions and learning how to show various types of lines in unique ways. Our current art project has us using materials such as crayons, rulers, glue and black construction paper. We are almost ready to showcase our awesome work. Stay tuned for the final product on its way real soon. 
Our Global Read Aloud project has begun and we have already read our first entry...The North Star. The author study will inspire our creative side. Ask your child to recall how some of Peter Reynold's books have inspired us to make our mark so far!

Global Read Aloud...coming soon!

Wonderful news...our class will be participating in an author study via the Global Read Aloud Project. This project connects classrooms around the world. We will be reading a series of books written by Peter H. Reynolds. A wonderful author who writes children's stories with messages about friensdhip, belonging, perseverance and creativity. We will also use the stories to make connections and predictions. We already participated in a Twitter project on International Dot Day (#DOTDAY) where we read the story The Dot. We shared how a simple dot can take us to a million places. We were inspired to make our mark and show our creative side! We shared our creativity on Twitter. Our Dot artwork is also featured outside of our classroom. 

The Global Read Aloud Project will allow us to connect with other classrooms. Each week, we will be reading a different book from Peter H. Reynold's library. We will share and connect with classrooms in Ottawa (and perhaps around the world)! We will share our wonders and our learning via Twitter, Padlet and more. I look forward to participating in this amazing project and can't wait to see what new wonders we will discover. To follow along with our tweets and tweets about the project, we will use the Twitter hashtag #GRA14. Stay tuned to our Class Twitter account...and our Blog for insight into what we learn!

For more information about the Global Read Aloud project, click on over to their website!