Global Read Aloud

Wow, it is already October! Where does the time go? Sorry I have been a little detained lately. I forget how busy the beginning of the school year is, and how every year I think it gets a little busier. Some exciting news is happening in the world of reading in fifth grade...this week we are starting our Global Read Aloud! You may have read this in last week's Chalk Talk, but let me explain a little more about it. Mrs. Haglin and I have been working together to start a connection with three other fifth grade classrooms somewhere in the world. All of us (our classrooms and theirs) are going to be reading the same book, One For The Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. We are then going to use a few different ways to communicate about what we have read with these other classes. This Friday each class will meet their connecting class through Skype (video conferencing). We will do a round of 20 questions to see if we can figure out where in the world the other class is located. Earlier this week students paired up to think of questions they could ask...for example: are you in the United States? Are you near an ocean? Do you live in the mountains? And so on. The students will have a paper map on their desks on Friday so that as they answer our questions we can cross areas off and hon in on where they are located. I am so excited for this! It's a lot of work, but we will be so worth it and the kids are really looking forward to it. 
In other news; new reading logs went home today. These will be due October 31st. Your child should be reading 5 nights a week for minimum of 20 minutes. I will end with a picture of a little visitor we have had in our classroom the last few weeks. My son Jackson goes to ECFE here at Maple Lake on Tuesdays and helps Mrs. Kath in the library on Wednesdays and he can't resist stopping by to see the big kids! They love it too, and he eats up all the attention! Thanks for a great first month. I will let you know how our fist Skype goes after Friday! 

(Jackson and his daycare mama, Fran)