2nd grade | Expect the Miraculous

Second grade has been studying the regions of Georgia as part of their social studies standards. I pulled multiple resources for them to use including informational books, Georgia stories, posters of animals and plants, and regions of Georgia posters. In each classroom, students were placed into groups to research a specific region. This was built into both writing time and social studies. Students were supposed to use their research to write a script for a regions of Georgia commercial. Their job was to convince someone to visit that region by telling about the land, animals, plants, and things to do in that region. During some of these sessions, students came to the media center in small groups for research support. I worked with them both on researching facts and also writing scripts. Finally in class, students designed backdrops for their commercials.

In the library, students came in small groups to film their commercials. We filmed in our studio and used one of our fusion flip tables to tape the backdrops to. I used an iPad to record the students acting out their commercial. Our iPad had a dual shotgun microphone plugged in to improve the sound quality. It was interesting to see the students’ different ideas for how to do a commercial. Some incorporated puppets, creative slogans, and even a breakaway door.

I took each video and put it into iMovie, uploaded it to Youtube, and then attached it to a Thinglink. For our Thinglink image, I took a photograph of a map of GA which is found on the floor just outside of the 2nd grade rooms. Thinglink allows you to attach multiple links to one image. I’ve used Thinglink for individual projects, but I liked that this use of Thinglink pulled all of the videos into one easy to reach location. I shared the link with teachers so that they could see the progress being made toward finishing all of the videos. They pulled the Thinglink up on their boards and let students watch the videos that had been made so far. It created a great review tool for where all of the regions of GA are and also allowed classes to hear the research that had been gathered in the other classrooms. We will make a QR code for the Thinglink so that visitors with mobile devices can scan the code and visit the project.

This was a great first quarter project. I think it is a stepping stone toward the next technology-related project that 2nd grade will do. My regret is that I wish that more students could have been involved in actually creating the final product. I wish that I had at least had a few students from each room sit and watch or help make the Thinglink.

Take a look at their work in progress here.

983 miles to Van Meter

I’m so excited about the project that two 2nd grade classes are working on right now. Mrs. Ramseyer and Mrs. Wright’s classes are connecting with Shannon Miller’s 2nd grade students in Van Meter, Iowa. Right now, our 2nd graders are working on opinion writing. The idea for this project started there, but it has grown into so much more through email and face-to-face conversations with the teachers and tweets, emails, and Google Docs with Shannon Miller.

Yesterday, the 2 second grade classes came to the library to kickoff the project. We looked at Google Earth and mapped the distance from our school to Van Meter Elementary in Van Meter, Iowa. It is 983 miles and would take over 15 hours to drive there. Students were also curious about how long it would take to walk there, so Google Earth showed us it would take about 304 hours! With the approaching snow storm, I’m not sure I want to try that one!

Next we talked about what it means to blog. I showed them the library blog and how it is read by people all around the world. We even looked at the Clustr map showing where our blog readers come from. I was trying to build their understanding of how large your audience is when you publish your writing online.

The students will use Kid Blog to create their blogs. This tool allows you to quickly create multiple accounts through an Excel spreadsheet upload. No email addresses are required. Then, all students have to do is go to the blog, select their name, and type in their password to type their posts. We took a look at this, and you should have heard the excitement when they saw that their names were already on the screen.

Writing our paper blogs

Finally, we had the kids brainstorm with a partner what they might write about in a first post. We wanted the focus to be “About Me”. Before we sent them to tables to write, I reminded them of the importance of not including personal information such as full names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. At tables, each student wrote a paper blog post about themselves. Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Ramseyer, and I all walked around and conferenced with students on their posts. We were impressed with how much students were willing to write. I was reminded of the importance of kids having an authentic audience for their work and how motivating that audience can be to even the most reluctant of writers.

Same, Same but Different will be a theme for our conversations

Today, we connected via Skype with Shannon and her students. We read the book Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw. It was such a perfect book because it pushes the notion that all over the world we do things that are the same but they might look a little different. During our Skype, we paused and let the kids talk about Iowa and Georgia. They stepped up to the camera and asked questions about one another about the weather, activities, and school population. They made several connections to the story. For example, in Iowa it is about to snow a lot. It takes a major snow for them to get out of school. We get snow here in GA, too, but we get out of school if there is just a dusting. Same, same but different! As we blog with one anther, it is our hope to share our favorite books and opinions as well as continue to explore the idea of how connected we are in the world even though things might look and sound a little different. I have a feeling students will continue to say “Same, same but different”.

On Monday and Tuesday, our 2nd graders will type and post their blogs. We will mail our paper versions of our writing to Iowa so that Shannon’s students can practice commenting on them before they actually comment online. She will do the same with her students’ writing so that we can practice commenting, too.

From there, we hope to connect some more through Skype and through the continued writing of our blogs.