Talking to New York

This week we had our first Skype call of the year with a class of first graders in New York state. Since this was our first call, we only introduced ourselves,shared our favourite colours and had time for a few “wonders”. The students were surprised to find out it was already after lunch where they live!

First Skype Call This Year

Reader’s Theatre with Florida and Pennsylvania

At last the big day arrived! We did perform our Reader’s Theatre for a couple of classes in the school, but the pictures below show the students showing their expression and smooth reading with a first grade class in Florida and a second grade class in Pennsylvania.

Reader's Theatre with Skype

Reader's Theatre with Skype

Reader's Theatre via Skype

Reader's Theatre with Skype

Next week, we’ll get to perform our stories with a couple of other classes from Manitoba and Ontario.

What Is It?

Our Skype buddies in North Carolina sent us this picture to see if we could figure out what it was. We used our best viewing skills to help solve this mystery. You can see this photo and each student’s guess and explanation on their blog.

Each of the children in our class read their guess aloud to the students in North Carolina, but despite the students’ careful detective work, none of them were able to solve the mystery. When they learned what it was, a loud chorus of “EEEUUUUCCCCHHHHHH” filled the classroom.

Have you figured out what it is?

It’s a wall of used chewing gum in Seattle Washington. Who knew?

Practicing Silent E With South Carolina

We have been reviewing long vowel words with a silent e at the end. To help practice, we made up some nonsense words that followed this phonic generalization. A class of second graders in South Carolina did the same. Today, when we chatted with the South Carolinian students, we each held up our words and tried to read the word that the other had made up. It was a fun way to practice those tricky phonics rules.

Skyping about Silent E Words

Other Classrooms Give Us A Tour

This week, two other classes who saw our classroom tour video sent us videos of their classroom.

First, we received this video from a French Immersion class in St. Catherines, Ontario.

We loved trying to figure out what they were saying. We heard a few words that we knew!

Another class, in Williston, Vermont made this tour for us.

We talked to this class in Williston on Skype today and found out that they have a LOT of things in common with our class.

Two Skype Calls

We “chatted” via Skype with two different classes this week. The first was with Mrs. Elder’s grade one/two class in Coronach. We chatted to find out what strategies the other class had used to solve the problems we gave them and to tell them how we solved the one they gave us.

Skype with Ms Elder's Class

The second call was with Ms. Lirenman’s class in Surrey, B. C. Four of my students and four of hers acted out their Halloween costumes for the other class to guess. Then, each class got to ask two questions about things that they wondered about the other class.

Skype with Ms Lirenman's Class