AUTHOR’S CHAIR: Virtual Trip to Wolf Creek Elementary

Yes! We had a successful (with a little help from SOESD) connection from Evergreen School to Wolf Creek Elementary. (video was a little pixilated, but not too bad)

My fifth graders had written and illustrated their personal narrative stories in mini-books. They knew they would be sharing their writing with first graders via a virtual field trip. I found kids were more conscientious of their writing when they knew they had an audience, other than me. Since it would take too long to read all 29 stories, I chose a few stories to share with Kelli Lovell’s first graders. I copied the stories ahead of time and sent them to Kelli so that her kids could generate questions for my kids.

Her first graders did a marvelous job asking their questions! They made my students think about their writing and why they chose to write about the specific narrative. Part of the assignment for my kiddos was to include a simile and an idiom. One of my students wrote that she was “in the doghouse”, meaning, of course, that she was in trouble. One of the first graders asked why she was put in the doghouse. It gave my student the opportunity to explain an idiom and what the phrase meant.

I felt the learning for both fifth graders and first graders was tremendous! My class is excited about doing it again some day.