Collaboration Coaches

Did this project with my classroom this year and they loved it! They send holiday cards to 32 different classrooms around the world, and we received 32 cards back from those classrooms. We got to skype with some of the classes and we got to continue conversations with those classrooms afterwards! It was a fun and creative project for the kids!

Create your own "Choose Your Own Adventure" story

Type in the word, it spits out the definition. You can look at synonyms for your word list, quiz yourself, create flashcards, generate worksheets (yuck, but still it has that option), ... Also don't forget about our advanced options (located under the text box in the home tab) which give you options such as alphabetizing and numbering your list. You can specify the maximum number of definitions for each word and whether or not to randomly pick these definitions from the dictionary (for example picking 2 definitions out of a possible 10).  QuickDefine is our cool new feature that offers a maximum of 2 definitions per word with the click of a button (under the List tab).

Oooh! This looks awesome I can't wait to try this out with my class! Thanks for sharing this. :)

This website is an amazing collection of global wildlife migration for several different species within different animal kingdoms. I really like how many resources there are for each area of study. Teacher resources are provided to integrate with reading and writing as well as the social science areas. I became particularly interested in the Gray Whales Migration because it has many terms 4th graders need to know. It also dicusses the migration of whales in their science book. I think it would be neat to share what we learn with others as we move through the project and monitor the migration of the whales. Places that are along the coast may actual get to see and report a sighting. We can share through our class blog and perhaps find other classes to skype with. One pitfall I see is the amount of time that could potential go into this project. But, it would be worth it.

Shauna's class did it http://blogs.goaj.org/mrshamman/2013/04/11/journey-north-mystery-class/

This project is a great way to practice the new common core mathematical practices. One of the major pitfalls I see is that the students could easily get side tracked.

Good insight.

The Mystery Class investigation is an eleven week hunt in which students try to find ten secret "Mystery Classes" hiding around the globe. The changing amount of sunlight at each site is the central clue.

I think that this could potentially be a great anchor activity for students.

I've seen it done with 5th grade years ago and it was great! Mrs. Hamman's class did it this year also. See her post http://blogs.goaj.org/mrshamman/2013/04/11/journey-north-mystery-class/

"The premise is simple; we pick a book to read aloud to our students during a set 6-week period and during that time we try to make as many global connections as possible. Each teacher decides how much time they would like to dedicate and how involved they would like to be. Some people choose to connect with just one class, while others go for as many as possible. The scope and depth of the project is up to you. In the past we have used Twitter, Skype, Edmodo, our wiki, email, regular mail, Kidblog, and any other tools we can think of to make these connections. Teachers get a community of other educators to do a global project with, hopefully inspiring them to continue these connections through the year."

Grants available!

After joining the Yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eiditarod/ , our grade is following the race. In our class, we are having a boys v. girls competition. The Yahoo group provides guidance and forms for each step of the race. Students are blogging about the progress.

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