Global Read Aloud Week 4

This week during the Global Read Aloud project, we read the story Tough Boris. We talked about character traits and came up with a list of juicy words to describe the character of Boris the pirate. We imagined why Boris grew up to be such a tough pirate by writing our own stories about what could have happened to him when he was younger.

To share our thinking, we collaborated with Mrs. Johnson's class from Dallas Texas. We wrote many reading responses to questions her class posted about the story Tough Boris. I posted a few of them below. You can see more on our Twitter profile page or by following the hashtag: #GRAMem

When my big brother that is 14 tries to trip me I sometimes think I need to be tough

— Mrs.Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) 2 November 2017

Mem fox wants us to learn we all have feelings!!

— Mrs.Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) 2 November 2017

Tough Boris and his crew went to put his bird because he died.#gramem

— Mrs.Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) 3 November 2017

Because his parrate died and everyone has feeling#gramem

— Mrs.Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) 3 November 2017

I liked how they were coloured neatly and they were like in the olden times when they looked so fashioned

— Mrs.Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) 3 November 2017

She wanted to teach us to be nice and don't always think you need to be tough

— Mrs.Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) 2 November 2017

Whoever You Are Shared Writing

This week we participated in week 3 of the Global Read Aloud Project. We read the story Whoever You Are by Mem Fox and talked about the text-to-text and text-to-world connections. We collaborated with a partner and shared our connections and our thinking on a shared writing activity using Google Slides. Students are becoming very familiar with how to use a Slidedeck to collaborate with their peers and help them navigate the site to post our learning. Have a look below at our finished product. Additionally, students can read and share their ideas on a shared-padlet created by a teacher from the Caymen Islands. This week, the book had us think about the great things in our community and in the city we live. A few students had the chance to post their ideas to the shared padlet. Students may continue to add for homework this weekend!

Global Read Aloud Project Week 1 and Week 2

Feel free to continue to add more of your ideas on the shared padlets that Mrs. Del Risco created with her students from the Caribbean. Have a read at what students from around the world are writing about foods and animals where they live.

Week 1: Koala Lou.
Animals Where We Live Shared Padlet:

Week 2: Possum Magic
Food Where We Live Shared Padlet

Reflecting on our Learning from the Global Read Aloud Project

CR's beautiful drawings of the 6 books we read during the #GRA15

We have really enjoyed participating in The Global Read Aloud Project over the past few weeks. Students looked forward to finding out about the newest book in the author's study each week. We read 6 books in total. We used the books to increase our vocabulary, to become better writers and to connect and share on a global scale. Thanks to the project, we got to collaborate with a number of classes around the world via Twitter, Padlet, Google Hangout and Google Slides. The students loved seeing how they could interact with a story in so many different ways. We learned a lot about collaborating with friends in our room, and with new friends we are meeting online too.

Students have become better writers as a result of the author study. They are comfortable with answering questions on the books that we read. We used the books to work towards writing descriptive paragraphs that had at least 5 sentences. The students worked hard to write about their best memories and built on the strategies that they've been learning about to write a descriptive paragraph.

Students loved that creating their own OK Book on Google Slides. They are hoping to use the tool again to create books that they can share with the world. They are many blooming authors in our classroom. This book inspired some students to create their own book at the Writing Center!

 

One of the highlights for many of us was the Google Hangout that we got to do with Mrs. Mason's Grade 1/2 class in Kanata. Our classes chatted about our favourite  books in the author study. We shared our OK Books that we both wrote on Slides and took turns answering questions and sharing our learning. It was such a great way to open our classroom and chat with a class who read the same books as us!

@MrsCiampaClass We had a great time hanging out to share about these inspiring, funny & creative books #GRAAmy pic.twitter.com/Jtsgsdi48T

— Mrs.Mason (@MrsMasonOCSB) November 7, 2015

I am grateful to a wonderful teacher who lives in the United States named Pernille Ripp. For the past few years, Pernille has organized and ran The Global Read Aloud Project. Her concept has quickly spread across the world and continues to be a Global Project that many teachers (like me) look forward to teaching each year. She tweeted a thank you on Friday and asked us to share what were our best memories. Students went to the Writing Center during our centers time to reply to Pernille's Tweet with some of their best memories. TC received a response from her and he was SO excited about it. Have a read below at some of our best memories!

EB saya; my favourite book is the ok book because he had a pancake of he head @pernilleripp

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

PernilleRipp CD says: My favourite moment is when Mrs. Ciampa went on facetime whith another class. we talked about amykrouse books.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

EB says: My favourite book is plant a kiss because when she kiss the ground and I like your book @pernilleripp

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

DS says: my favorite moment is when we did the sides in the ok book by Ds. @pernilleripp

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

BRM my favourite part was the google hangout and writing about if I planted peace !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! @pernilleripp #gra15

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

@MrsCiampaClass Awe that is awesome, I am so glad you had a great experience! #gra15

— Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp) November 13, 2015

GRA Week 5: The OK Book

This week during the Global Read Aloud Project, we collaborated with a Grade 1/2 class nearby in Kanata. We were finally successful at connecting over Google Hangout to chat with another class. The students did such a great job at being patient and at chatting with the class over Hangout for the first time. We chatted about all of the books that we've read by Amy Krouse Rosenthal over the past few weeks during the Global Project. It was great to see the students ask so many detailed questions. They also had great answers to the questions that Mrs. Mason's class asked us. A Hangout provides students with many different opportunities to collaborate, to share, to inquire and to discover new ideas. We are opening our classroom doors on a global scale when we invite another classroom into ours via a Hangout. The students were excited about meeting Mrs. Mason's grade 1/2 class and hope that they could do it again soon. After our Hangout, her class sent us many Tweets to share more things they loved about the Global Project we are both working on. Students are beginning to use Twitter to answer questions sent to us from classes we learn with. We experimented with it at our Writing Center today.

All week we talked about what the word OK means. We experimented with Google Slides to create our own version of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's OK book. Students were challenged to use Slides and Google Draw to create their own OK images and learned how to Google and insert their own images onto their Book page. It was great to see the students experiment with a tool that they hadn't used before. They quickly became experts and were excited to help their friends learn some of tricks to using the tools. We will definitely be using Google Slides again for shared learning opportunities. Creating our own class book inspired some students to create their own books at our Writing Center. We are just in the early stages of adding ideas to our writing center but so far we have many eager authors in our room. Below is our completed OK Book. We hope you enjoy reading about our OK adventures!

GRA Week 4: Exclamation Mark

During Week 4 of the Global Read Aloud project we read the story Exclamation Mark. All week we've had a lot of fun with the story. One aspect of the story that the students enjoyed was seeing the different facial expressions of the exclamation mark. We had many discussions on how we could describe how it was feeling or the way it looked. We then talked about how we could describe ourselves using innovative adjectives.

Students brainstormed a big list of words that described themselves. We started with a small bank of words and soon it quickly grew to include many awesome describing words. Have a look below at the words we came up with. We used the Tagul website to showcase the adjectives that describe us.

GRA Week 3: It's Not Fair

This week during the 3rd week of the Global Read Aloud project, we read a book called It's Not Fair. The story talks about a series of unfortunate events that are just not fair. We made many personal connections to the story as we read through the events that were not fair. The book taught us that sometimes things in life are just not fair, and that it's ok not to get what you want sometimes.

We made text-to-text connections to the story as well as text-to-self connections and talked a lot about what kind of things we feel aren't fair. We wrote about something that isn't fair to us. Some students were reluctant to share what isn't fair, but we reminded ourselves that we are allowed to feel like something isn't fair. As long as we know that everyone feels that way sometimes, we just need to accept it and not let it bother us.

We posted and shared some of our connections to the story on a shared-Padlet again. It is so great that the students have opportunities to post their learning on Padlet with other students from around the world. The students are using Padlet weekly and are becoming experts on how to post. They are also becoming safe and responsible digital citizens who make sure they use their online presence for safe learning.

Created with Padlet

Some students got to read with a friend on the AudioBoom app. Some students are becoming experts at using this awesome iPad app. We are using it to help our reading fluency and to see if there is anything that we are missing before completing our writing task. AudioBoom is a free app. Your child can use it at home to practice reading their favourite book. When you play it back, it is neat to see how we read since we don't get to hear ourselves read very often.

Finally, we attempted to do a Google Hangout with another Grade 3 class in our city this week. We wanted to meet some other students who were participating in the Global Project like us. Students were really excited and had some questions prepared. Unfortunately we weren't able to make the facetime opportunity work. We hope to be able to do our first Hangout this week...stay tuned!

GRA Week 2 Duck Rabbit

This week we participated in the 2nd week of The Global Read Aloud Project. This time we read the book Duck Rabbit by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. The students really enjoyed reading and laughing along with this story.

While reading the book, we made many great connections to the story. As a class, we talked about the Making Connections reading strategy and recalled the 3 types of connections you can make when reading a book: Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text and Text-to-World. After reading Duck Rabbit, we talked about what other books or personal connections we can make to the story. We had many great discussions and ideas to share. We wrote about our connections and shared them with our partners.
This project is helping us to work on our reading strategies. While reading a story, good readers make connections to better understand the books that we read. Ask your child to make some connections while reading with them at home!

While reading the story, the students had many opinions to share on whether they thought it was a Duck or a Rabbit. We had many great discussions and students and to prove why they thought it was a duck or a rabbit. We still don't know for sure what the answer is. We took the official Duck Rabbit poll. We can't wait to the the results!

Is It a Duck Or A Rabbit? – Take the Official Poll #GRA15 #GRAAmy http://t.co/87D1qUG4Wf

— Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp) October 14, 2015

A great thing about the Global Read Aloud Project is the opportunity to make global connections with other students who are also reading this story. This week we collaborated with friends in our class to share on a Padlet created by a teacher in the Ottawa area. Students are learning to share and collaborate with friends by sharing ideas together when posting online. This Padlet was used by other classes from around the world to write about what they liked, their favourite parts and their connections to the funny story Duck Rabbit. What a fabulous opportunity to connect and share with other students globally. Big thanks to Mrs. Martel for inviting us to share our learning with her class and others from around the world. Have a look below at the great learning our class got to share. Students loved that they could read the learning of students that they haven't met too!

Created with Padlet

Additionally, we continue to use the AudioBoom app to read with a friend. Students are using the app to read their work orally. This helps them to practice their reading fluency with a partner. When reading with a friend, we are practicing how to read clearly and with expression. Our partners also help us to make corrections to our writing too. Have a listen below to some of our great connections to the story Duck Rabbit.



Finally, after reading the story it reminded some of us of optical illusions. We looked for many great examples and were really excited about this one. What do you see in the picture?

While talking about DuckRabbit it reminded us of illusions. What do U see? @lcaluori @Gr1MrsMartel #GRA15 @missamykr pic.twitter.com/VfodJMCtP0

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 16, 2015

Global Read Aloud Project Week 1

This week we began working on another Global Project. The Global Read Aloud project is a 6 week author study project focusing on books by the author Amy Krouse Rosenthal.This project will take us on an interesting adventure. We will read a book by the author each week then share, post and collaborate with it online with people from around the world.

The first book in the project was called Chopsticks. After reading the story, we wrote about what we thought the author's message was. Students worked with a partner to come up with the moral or message in the story that they author wanted us to learn. A few students read their author's message on the AudioBoom app. Have a listen below at some of our great learning.
Additionally, we used Twitter to share our learning with the author of the story herself. In the first week of the project, we've already heard back from her. The students were so excited to hear from her and to see that she pays attention to Twitter messages that we send out. It is great to see the positive interactions we can make with Twitter. Not only are we using it to share our learning on the Global Read Aloud project, but we are interacting with the author of the book too. We are using the hashtag #GRA15 and #GRAAmy to share our learning with students from around the world.  Ask your child about it!

@MrsCiampaClass Well said, each and every one. :)

— Amy Krouse Rosenthal (@missamykr) October 7, 2015

The students were curious about chopsticks after reading the story. They often used pencils to try to imitate how to use chopsticks to  pick up objects. We played a Chopstick Challenge on Thursday to end the first week of the #GRA15. It was so much fun to see who could pick up and place marshmallows in a bin the quickest in 1 minute. The winning student got 26 in 1 minute! It was a great way to end our first week in the project. Next week we will continue with the project and read the story Duck Rabbit.

Showing grit in the Minute-to-Win-it Chopstick Challenge! #gra15 #globalreadaloud pic.twitter.com/wieQGFm5rA

— Paul Gautreau (@paugaut) October 8, 2015

Hi @missamykr Thanks for the message and the amazing book Chopsticks. We think it's really fantastic! #GRA15 #GRAAmy https://t.co/OaABlqhpEL

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 8, 2015

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

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!