Our North Star!

Thursday was an exciting day in our class. It began with a review of our Global Read Aloud book The North Star by Peter Reynolds.  Then we visited Ms. Lirenman`s class blog and looked at the videos they had created using their iPads.  We were inspired to do the same (thank you for sharing your idea with us!) so we used our iPads to draw ourselves with a star.  Then we recorded ourselves as we talked about what we want to be when we grow up!  What do you want to be when you grow up?

Once we had finished we had an opportunity to Skype with Mrs. Stard's Grade 2 class from Yellowknife.  Mrs. de Jager`s class joined us and Mrs. Stard had another grade 2 class join her, so altogether there were about 88 students learning from each other!  There were a few minor technical difficulties to start with but we were very patient as Mrs. Betts worked them out.

 All the classes had completed a survey answering the question, "Did you enjoy reading The North Star.  Most people liked the story.  Many of us were able to tell what we liked about the book.  After we shared our results from the graphs we shared where we thought our north star would take us (what we hoped to be when we grew up).  It was fascinating to realize that we were so much alike in our hopes and dreams! Some people from each group wanted to be soccer players, baseball players, doctors, singers, scientists . . . . there were so many dreams. 

Then Mrs. Betts read the next book by Peter Reynolds called, I`m Here!  We used visualization (making pictures in our head) while we listened to the book.  This was really hard because you had to listen carefully and concentrate on the words to understand the story.  We had a short discussion about what was happening in the book and then we were left with some deep thinking questions from Mrs. Betts. . . .  ``If you could take anybody with you on a trip who would you take, why would you choose them and where would you go?"

I wonder how YOU would answer that question?  We plan to Skype again next week to share our thinking.