Learning Together In Iowa and Colorado All About The Animals In Our States!

Last week my friend Michelle Baldwin and I connected our students.....We were studying animals in both schools and thought it would be great learning with each other.  

Michelle's group were 7th and 8th graders.....My group were the kindergarteners at Van Meter.  

The kindergarteners shared what they learned about their Iowa animals and Michelle's group shared about animals found in Colorado.  

It was so much fun seeing all of the children sharing and learning together from Iowa to Anastasis Academy in Colorado.  And it was so much fun seeing my wonderful friend Michelle with her students.  

All of our kindergarteners took turns sharing their animal and information about it too.  They told our new friends in Colorado where their animal lived, what they eat, how many babies they had at one time and other things they learned along the way during the Iowa Animal Research Project we have been working on throughout the last several weeks.  

The kindergarteners loved learning from the students in "Team Baldwin" too.  They told our students all about seeing moose, deer and so many other things in Colorado.  

This project has been so very very rewarding in many ways.

The best part of it.....Seeing that smile on their faces because they are TEACHING someone else something new, something they take so much pride in knowing.

Also, by having the kindergarten students share about their Iowa animal it was also a very good way to assess how much they learned and how they were feeling about their project.

Thank you Team Baldwin and Michelle....We so appreciate all of you connecting, learning and teaching us last week.

Posts About This Project....

•  Our Kindergarteners Are Starting Their Iowa Animal Research Projects....The First Steps That We Are Taking This Week 
• Look Mrs. Miller....We Our Researching Our Iowa Animals In The Library Today! 
• Our Little Kindergarten Researchers Show "Wonder and Investigation" In Their Iowa Animal Research Project...and with a special little visitor too!

A Special Visit From Our Friend, Author and Illustrator Alan Silberberg....What FUN We Had!

We had a VERY special and FUNNY guest Skype into the library this last week.

Our amazing friend Alan Silberberg visited the 5th graders at Van Meter! He is an author and illustrator.

He started the Skype like we have never done before....with giant googlie eyes and a very funny face!  It was so much fun and what a way to connect with all of them...they loved it.

Alan has a new book available...The Awesome Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz.  

He sent it to me a few weeks ago and I loved it!  I couldn't wait to have Alan visit and share this wonderful new book with all of them too.  

This little book trailer is fun to watch....

and the book cover for The Awesome Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz is so great too.  

Alan also wrote Milo, Sticky Notes & Brain Freeze and Pond Scum.  

Alan had the BEST presentation for us. 

He told us about how he got involved with illustrating and writing.  He shared how he got his ideas and stories of his childhood.  He drew the kids right into his books as you can see.  

The 5th graders had a lot of questions for Alan and we all learned so much through these great questions too.  Alan has had lots of interesting jobs and they have talked about those ever since the Skype. 

We also had our own little personal film crew for this visit.  The kids just love being able to go grab the iPad to film all kinds of things in the library.  Today they used the Camtasia Relay again to capture this Skype. 

Next, Alan spent time drawing for us, giving tips and looking at art work the students created.  

For these characters he asked for volunteers to give him their name.  He then created a character with the letters.  Look at the one above....Can you see the V's, F's, U and other letters?  

While he was drawing, several of the students went to grab paper and a pencil.  They were drawing now too and even trying out their very own "letter people".

 Alan loved having the kids show him their art work.

Alan also has this website called drawbetternow.com...Draw Better Now.  There are cartoon tips and a few downloads focusing around his books.  

What a special day....Thank you Alan for bringing so much to our students, teachers and families.

You are making such a difference.

Our Little Kindergarten Researchers Show "Wonder and Investigation" In Their Iowa Animal Research Project...and with a special little visitor too!

Our kindergarteners did something totally new this year.  They did their first big research project!  

In the blog posts Our Kindergarteners Are Starting Their Iowa Animal Research Projects......The First Steps That We Are Taking This Week and Look Mrs. Miller....We Our Researching Our Iowa Animals In The Library Today! I tell all about the research project and the collaboration that took place between the classroom, library and their homes.  

The big essential question that we wanted the children to wonder about and investigate was...

Why does your Iowa animal live where it lives in Iowa?  

By developing questions, making predictions, finding resources, reading, thinking and learning about their animal they were empowered to follow their own sense of wonder and investigate new things.  

I have loved seeing the kindergarteners and their teachers so excited about this project....And the best part was seeing what they created and learned from all the wonder and investigation that took place.  

When the Iowa Animal Research Reports came back the three kindergarten teachers and I got together in the library to take a look at them.  They did such a wonderful job.  

And just by taking a look one could tell that they have enjoyed being engaged and empowered by this project.  

Nathan, from Miss McClintock's room, researched the blue spotted salamander.  I just LOVE his report!  It is so full of wonderful information and images....we could really tell that he loved learning about this Iowa animal.  

And to make Nathan's learning even more engaging he was able to meet a real live blue spotted salamander from Van Meter.

One morning my daughter called me and told me she saw a salamander by the garage door when she was leaving.  I went outside and sure enough it was a blue spotted salamander.  So I took a big container, put holes in the lid, filled it with grass and a little water, and put the salamander in to take him to school to meet everyone.

 The kids were SOOOOO excited (and the teachers were too).....especially Nathan!

When I left Miss McClintock's room I ran into Mrs. Gadberry and her kindergarteners too.  They just lit up too when I told them what Brianna had found. The best part was hearing them all call out things they have learned about salamanders or things that they were very curious about.

The first question, "Did you find him by water?  I bet you did because they live by water or where it is wet." 

We had him come visit the library too for the afternoon so all the students could see how cool he was.

Along with their reports, the kindergarteners made a model of the animal in their Iowa habitat too.

They put them out it he hallway for everyone to see and learn from them too.

They could create their animal and its habitat any way they wanted.  Some made models, others made posters or displays.  We even had a few make little paper books.

Next it was time for each student to present their Iowa animal research project to the class.  They would be sharing the information in the packet with all of their classmates.

They were super excited and learned so much from one another.  These got the conversations going even more between them and I watched it continue as they visited the library after the presentations wanting to find out more information about someone else's Iowa animal.  I loved that wonder taking place during these times.

Miss McClintock (who you all know is also my cousin) and the other two teachers videotaped their students presenting.  This Thursday we are going to put together a little project using iMovie with the videos and images.

Also, they created an illustration of their animal and why it lives where it lives using TuxPaint.  We will then put them all together and using Camtasia Relay to record their voice when they answer that essential question.

I can't wait to be able to share that so we can all watch the love that went into each of these projects too.