On Friday, March 1st, the following classes connected with Mr. Erickson's eighth graders and celebrated reading on Read Across America Day: Miss Crouse, Miss Smits, Mrs. Nielsen, Mrs. Billings, Mrs. Graber, Mr. Erickson, Mrs. Dunn, and Mrs. Dolch.
We planned a fun collaborative activity for this special day that exposed our students to a new technology (for most) , Google Hangouts. For all of you Skyoe users, Google Hangouts is a great alternative that allows you to connect with up to nine other people at one time. Here is an article that outlines some possible ideas on how you can utilize Google Hangouts in the classroom and/or in education.
Before our reading event on Friday, the classroom teachers that were participating filled out an NEA Reading Achievement Award for all of their students. These awards were given to the kindergarten and first grade students after all of the reading events for the day were completed.
To start off our reading celebration, our students watched a quick video that captured some of our elementary and secondary students reading the NEA's Read Across America Poem.
The read Across America Poem is available on the following website: NEA - Read Across America Poem
I used iMovie, which is installed on my MacBook Pro, to create and edit this movie. I then uploaded the completed movie to my YouTube account in order to share it as a video. If you have an iPad, you can download the iMovie app for $14.99.( iMovie App Link ) iMovie is an awesome tool for creating and editing movies and would highly recommend using it!
After watching the video, our elementary students listened to eighth graders while they introduced themselves and talked about their favorite Dr. Seuss book. After the introductions, the eighth graders lead an echo reading with the elementary students, reading the NEA's Reader's Oath. It was so much fun to listen to the kids read this pledge together.
Mrs. Dunn's class and Mrs. Dolch's class performed their special reading song they had been working on for the eighth graders. They did a fantastic job!
The last part of our collaborative time was spent playing Dr. Seuss BINGO. I created some BINGO cards for the first grade classes that included some of their important words. The Kindergarten classes also used their important words on their BINGO cards.The eighth graders and Mr. Erickson took turns reading the BINGO words to the elementary students. This was a fun activity for all!
This was a great way to spend Read Across America day, celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday, and try out Google Hangouts!
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