Today, Ms. Seeling’s students had the chance to connect with another Kindergarten class in Van Meter, Iowa.  Librarian Shannon Miller and I read the book Extra Yarn once again and students made bookmarks to send to one another.  It was another magical time.

I made some fun observations this time:

• Students wondered if Shannon’s students could read the same letters that they do.
• Students wondered if they would get their bookmarks in the mail by this afternoon.
• Students wondered if Shannon’s students were in another country.
• Students had personal stories for each of their bookmarks.

Any of these wonderings would have been great next steps of investigation in the library or in the classroom.  The personal stories really made me curious, so I grabbed my phone and tried to capture a few of the stories.  Each student had a reason they were using particular color and shapes.  Many were trying to tell the Van Meter students something about themselves through their artwork.  It really made me wonder how many stories we miss from students about the work that they create when we don’t stop to listen.  I want to do better capturing these kinds of stories.

Bookmarks are almost ready to mail to Iowa.

Since Shannon and I connected our 2 classes, I’ve had some brainstorming going on with teachers and other librarians about other activities to do with the book Extra Yarn.  Today, Ms. Seeling talked about doing a compliment web using yarn.  A student gives another student a compliment and then tosses the yarn to that student.  This continues until students have made a big web of yarn.  Kathy Schmidt in Gwinnett County brainstormed with me on twitter.  Now I really want to read the book again and try some of these new activities.  There’s always next year.  Who wants to connect?  It’s not too early to start planning 🙂

Kathy and I brainstormed on Twitter.

After our brainstorm, Kathy extended the lesson Shannon and I did and shared on Twitter.