Wanted: Small Cardboard!

Next week we will be completing a Cardboard Challenge during #GlobalMakerDay. We are in need of cardboard boxes or cardboard of any kind to prepare for our future challenge. (Examples: cereal boxes, gift boxes, kleenex boxes, paper towel rolls, etc..) If you have any small cardboard boxes or materials that you can donate to our class, please send them with your child before next week!

Many Thanks!

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

Dot Day

September 15th is International Dot Day. An interactive initiative hosted by Peter H. Reynolds the author of many famous books including The Dot. The author invites readers to celebrate their Dot Day by collaborating, creating, connecting and celebrating the power of a simple dot. Students make their mark by starting with a dot and finding out where it might take them.

In our class we began the day by brainstorming with friends how we might demonstrate our growth mindset. Students chatted about what the words meant to them and came up with phrases, words or advice to share. Some key words that we came up with the most: Try, GRIT, believe, guess and more! The best part, one of the messages they said over and over was: "It's OK to make mistakes, because that's how we learn". Our class works so well together and I was so impressed with how invested they were in this activity. Ask your child about it! We completed our day with dot art using q-tips. Once the photos are dry we will put them up to remind ourselves to try our best and believe in what we can accomplish together as a class!




 

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

DotDay

On Tuesday September 15th our class celebrated International Dot Day. Dot Day was celebrated by over 4 million students from 115 countries around the world!

Dot Day is a day created by the author Peter H. Reynolds. He wrote an inspiring book called The Dot. A story that taught us about perseverance and to make our mark by starting with a simple dot. Dot Day inspired us to  use our imagination and take a chance even if we don't think we know how to do something. DotDay was a great story to start the year off with a focus on building our confidence and perseverance.
To celebrate DotDay we used only Q-Tips and paint. Students had to start with a dot and then see where that dot took them. They were challenged to use dots in their picture to make their mark and be creative. It was great to see the students take chances with their work. We used our dot work to write about what inspired us.

Created with Padlet

We also used our dot work to try out some new tools in our room. We are learning how to scan QRCodes to read and post our work. We are practicing our reading fluency on the app AudioBoom. We are learning how to post our ideas on Padlet using iPads and Chromebooks. We are also working to explain our thinking in writing and explaining WHY using words like because to extend our thinking. Some students got to read their work on the AudioBoom app. A huge thank you to those families who have read and signed the internet permission forms. Please sign and send to school if you haven't done so already. Below is a picture our our artwork. We can't wait to show you at our school's Open House BBQ on Thursday September 17th. See you in Room 222!

5SC This Week: In the Jungle

This week our class participated in another 5 Sentence Challenge. Our prompt this this was 3 words: In the Jungle...Students had to write 5 sentences using only this writing prompt. https://fivesc.net/2015/03/05/prompt-6-3-2/#gf_23

As a class we began with a brainstorm session. We explored what jungles look...feel...and sound like. We used a shared Google Doc to come up with some details before beginning our writing. Have a look at what our shared brainstorm looked like:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YEyl2gi80_dRe-Yg-5eLB_HHN-VSvZ2uac2ZEP9jeFo/edit?usp=sharing  This activity helped us to write our rough drafts. It gave us the opportunity to work with a partner and come up with ideas together.

Please follow the link to our class KidBlogs to view what we all wrote about! Since this is a Global Writing Project, we have already received comments from student bloggers from all over the world! This week the students took some time to read and respond to some of the comments we've received on our Blogs. We've also commented on blogs from students around the world who wrote about the jungle. It is pretty amazing to see the reach this amazing project has. We are communicating with students in Australia, Thailand, the USA and more!

Students are encouraged to post and comment on our KidBlogs over the March Break! They are also welcome to continue commenting on other jungle blogs from around the world: https://fivesc.net/2015/03/05/prompt-6-3-2/#gf_23

HAVE A WONDERFUL MARCH BREAK!

5 Sentence Challenge!

Students working on peer editing their rough draft of the 5SC!

This week we began a new global project venture. This time it is a Blogging Project known as the "5 Sentence Challenge." This is a global project that challenges student writers to blog about a particular topic using a sentence or picture prompt. This project is available to student bloggers all over the world. We are exciting to begin taking part in it!

This week the prompt focused on a beautiful picture. We brainstormed as a class what we could write about and focused on the details inside of the picture. Students had great ideas to share. We started with a rough draft. Our goal was to be creative, write at least 5 sentences and use our writing checklists to help keep us on track.
Students worked in partners to edit one another's work. They used the editing checklist as their guide. Once rough copies were complete, students wrote their good copies on their KidBlogs!

As a class we have been working on giving effective feedback in the comments we write on the Blogs. I took sample comments from their KidBlogs and together we created a Bump It Up Wall. The bump it up comments will serve as a guide for students to work towards adding more detail in their comments and giving students something to reply back to. This will help to encourage deeper conversations on our Blogs!

The exciting part of this 5 Sentence Challenge is that all students around the world who are participating in this project can read and comment on OUR stories! They are posted and ready for any student to comment on. Students in our class are encouraged to view what other students blogged about the picture. All students and schools participating can be found by following this link: https://fivesc.net/2015/02/05/prompt-8-3-2-2/#gf_22 Students can click on any student's Blog link and comment away!! Remember to bump up your comment with extra details and a question!

To view all stories that our class posted, please view our class blogs and check out our Blog Roll: http://kidblog.org/MrsCiampa/

New this week...Mr. Thomas is now blogging too!!