Friday, March 9, 2012

C4T #2

Grades 1 and 2 at Ancaster Meadow School
February 24, 2012 Post "Around the Watercycle"
The Ancaster Meadow School is an elementary school in Ontario, Canada. Ms. Aviva Dunsiger manages this particular blog for her first and second grade students.   In the first post that I commented on, the second grade students were working on a video project of a play called Around the Watercycle.  Each group of six students made props and divided the parts of the play among themselves.  They also assigned roles for who would do what including who would film.  After they created their film, they were to critique their performance and give themselves feedback.  Ms. Dunsiger also posted three of the projects and pictures of the students rehearsing and preparing for their performance.  This project worked on so many educational levels.  Not only were the students doing a Science project, but they were working on Reading, Drama, and what she calls "Creative Arts" or Media.  The comment I left on the blog praised the students for such creative work. I was honestly surprised by the level of professionalism displayed by such young students.  This was my comment and Mrs. Aviva's reply"





Hello! I am a student at the University of South Alabama, and I was assigned your blog for one of my classes. I have to say that I love this particular project and the way it combined so many different subjects areas. The students did a wonderful job on their videos! They also gave themselves good encouragement and feedback. My class is learning about education in media, and your project presents a perfect example of how technology provides students with a multitude of new and exciting learning experiences. Thank you for sharing this post and the videos!

  • Thanks for your comment, Jessica! I’m glad that you enjoyed this post and this activity. I think it’s great when many expectations can be met with a single activity that is both engaging and a great learning opportunity too!
    Aviva

I share her sentiment about projects doing "double duty."
chrysanthemum








March 2, 2012 Post "Skype Literature Circle"
In this post, students are Skyping with a teacher candidate as a part of a Virtual Mentorship Program.  The teacher has assigned the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes for the students to read. Before they read the book, she asks them to make predictions about what will happen.  This whole discussion session is conducted over Skype. After the students read the book, they will have another Skype conversation with the teacher candidate about what they learned and how their predictions differed from what actually happened in the book.   Mrs. Dunsiger posted a video of the students Skyping; they looked so excited to be a part of the project and were obviously eager to dive into reading.  At the end of the post, Mrs. Dunsiger asked repliers to make their own predictions about what will happen and then tune in next week when they make another post about the results.  I put that the main character (Chrysanthemum) will turn into a flower of the same name at the end of the book. It was a far-fetched guess, but we'll see what happens!!  I also commented that this project proves how technology can open up new and exciting ways for students to learn and be excited about it!

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