Oh boy, this post is WAY overdue! I thought about not writing about it, but then I thought about the awesome opportunities we had and didn’t want to not share! So, pretend like it is March and you are reading about our World Read Aloud Week the week after it happened!
We started our week by decorating our door and bulletin board. I put my own spin on an idea that I found on Pinterest for our door and used Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies directed drawings for cat in the hat pictures! We also read a lot of Dr. Seuss books and books by the various authors we would be Skyping with.
During the week on Wednesday we had not one, but TWO Skyping sessions! In the morning we Skyped with Paul Czajak. We love reading his Monster books. He was VERY engaging and we thought he was really funny! He even read to us from two new books! We were definitely read to pre-order them… ; )
Our second Skype call was with Monica Cranes. My class was mesmerized by her accent! We loved talking about her books and about her role at The Free Library of Philadelphia.
On Thursday we had our first introduction to Night Zookeeper. As you can read from my previous post, this Skype session sparked the most popular part of our school year. We are STILL loving Night Zookeeper tons!!
We also Skyped with the magical Kallie George. We loved reading her book, Clover’s Luck. She was SO much fun to talk to. We loved her magical characters and the idea of a magical animal adoption agency. I would love to live in her world!
Last but not least, we played Kahoot with several classes through Google Hangout on Friday. This was our first country-wide Kahoot game and left us buzzing after an amazing week. You can read about that here!
How did I find all of these opportunities for my students? Through Twitter and Skype in the Classroom. You hear me preach about my PLN (Personal Learning Network) and the power of Twitter all the time. However, I am not too sure I have mentioned how much I love Skype in the Classroom before. This site is SO easy to use and helps me to provide my students with global opportunities. Sign up today and get emails regarding special programs – that is how I found all of these authors. Also – they are very interactive on Twitter. If you have a special request tweet them and they will definitely respond!
How do you provide experiences for your students outside of your four walls? I would love to hear!
Thank you, Mrs. B. for inviting me to celebrate World Read Aloud Day with you and your students! You were awesome and I had a blast! Obrigada!