Friday, October 30, 2009

Halloween 2.0

Thanks to two amazing teachers (Mrs. Cassidy in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan and Mrs. Lamb in St. Louis, Missouri), the Grade 1 students were able to "travel" outside of their classroom today to celebrate Halloween with other Grade 1 and Grade 2 students. Just after our Halloween Parade this afternoon, we Skyped Mrs. Cassidy's Grade 1 class and shared a Halloween Poem with them. They shared a Halloween Poem with us too. We learned that even though we live so far apart, both classes knew both poems and both classes celebrated Halloween in similar ways: by dressing up and having some special activities too. We found out that Mrs. Cassidy's class was having a party in the afternoon, and we told them that we created plasticine Wild Things in the morning. The students there knew the story, Where the Wild Things Are, and were excited to know that we knew the story too. Here is a screenshot of Mrs. Cassidy's incredible Grade 1 class:

Look at this screenshot with your children and talk to them about this special phone call.

We then ended our day with a Skype call to Mrs. Lamb's Grade 2 class in St. Louis, Missouri. Our students loved all of the great Halloween jokes that Mrs. Lamb's students told us. Her class also read us a poem that they wrote full of "juicy words." It was great! They liked listening to our poem too. I think that Mrs. Lamb's class was surprised to learn that even though we live in Canada, it is not too cold here to go trick-or-treating. In fact, both the students in Missouri and the students here go trick-or-treating in the evening. Maybe we're not so different after all! Here is a screenshot of Mrs. Lamb's terrific Grade 2 class:

We hope that looking at this screenshot with your children will remind them of our special Halloween celebration.

Here is a Google Map to show just how far we travelled today and all without leaving the classroom:


View Our Halloween Skype Calls in a larger map

Technology truly is a wonderful thing!

We hope that you'll leave a comment here to let us know what your children thought of Halloween 2.0: a new take on an old tradition!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought it was cool to talk to some where that was far away.
Mark

Aviva said...

Glad you thought so, Mark! I thought that it was pretty cool too. I think that the best part of the calls was finding out just how similiar our Halloween festivities are and just how similiar our classroom environments are too. What do others think? I can't wait to hear!

Miss Dunsiger

Unknown said...

I sat down with Simone yesterday and she was amazed that the class talked with kids in Missouri and Saskatchewan. She was sorry she was sick and missed out! This is a great way to get the kids involved! Thanks Rob

Aviva said...

So glad to hear that Simone enjoyed seeing what we did yesterday, even though she wasn't able to be at school. We hope that she feels better soon! Everybody at school definitely misses her!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

see evaryone on Monday. Happy Halloween, simone

Aviva said...

Glad you'll be back on Monday! We look forward to seeing you then!

Happy Halloween!