CES: Crouch/Greenberg 2nd grade/3rd grade Westport/Bridgeport

Today, for the second time, Stacey Crouch's 2nd grade students at Coleytown Elementary School communicated via Skype with Bob Greenberg's 3rd grade students at Columbus Elementary School in Bridgeport. Bob Greenberg had attended last year's ITL Summer Institute because he is a regular user of Classblogmeister, created by our keynote and workshop leader, David Warlick.

Ms. Crouch and Mr. Greenberg planned the focus of each session and a wiki was created on which the students could asynchronously communicate. The teachers had their students come up with a list of 5 questions to ask their friends while on Skype. During the two 35 minute sessions all students had an opportunity to talk on camera at least once, and most twice.

Before the second session all students read the book City Mouse, Country Mouse and discussed which mouse they felt most like. Students were coached by their teachers to think of other questions to ask each other. One more Skype session is being set up for this year.

The collaboration was designed to complement Westport's 2nd grade social studies unit on understanding urban, suburban and rural communities. Next year Mr. Greenberg will be a 2nd grade teacher, so the grade levels will be the same. Ms. Crouch and Mr. Greenberg are hoping to have their students Skype again next year.

CES: Trash and Treasure

Sarah Spencer, LMS at CES, has been working with 2nd grade students on several sessions using the Big6 Trash and Treasure method of note taking. First she showed a Powerpoint presentation to introduce the concept of how you need a question in order to know how to find the treasure! Today's lesson involved reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction books (some wordless alphabet books) in search of treasures to answer the question, "Why is this community an urban community?"

In the lesson I observed today with Karen Nelson and her class, students were asked to use the special note taking sheet to record their treasure words and the pages on which they were found. Each pair worked with a different book with several adults supporting their efforts. They were asked to find at least 10 treasure words before time was called and they shared their treasures.

All 2nd grade classes are also working with Pam Syndercombe, technology teacher, on trash and treasure activities. Having the same terminology used by the classroom teacher, technology teacher and library media specialist is helping students understand and practice the art of selecting information that is related to the research question.