Reader's Theater Skype Presentations

For the past couple of weeks, our class has been practicing "Reptile News" -- a reader's theater script.  This script fit in with our study of animal life cycles in science.  We were broken into groups of 3 or 4 as there were 4 roles -- Reporter 1, Reporter 2, Mr. (Ms.) Turtle and Mr. (Ms.) Rattlesnake. 

Then on Monday, every group performed for the class.  Two of the groups were chosen to participate in our Skype presentations on Tuesday morning.  We connected with Ms. Ariss', Ms. Holden's, Ms. Bettess', Ms. Brimacombe's and Ms. Dohn's classes to share our work.  Our two groups presented first.  Then we got to hear Ms. Holden's class do "Anansi the Spider", which is an African folktale.  We also heard two of Ms. Dohn's groups.  They did "Four Little Pigs" and "Click, Clack, Moo".  We were excited about the "Click, Clack, Moo" performance because we had read that book earlier in the year and watched the video too!

Here are a couple of pictures of the Skype call...

 

 

After listening to the performances, we went to the computer lab so that we could blog about them.  You can find our blog posts at Braybrook's Bloggers.  We'd love if you commented on them!

We were wondering...

Have you done reader's theater performances before?
Have you worked with other classes through Skype?

New Learning With Our Student Teacher

Right from the beginning of the year, we have had a student teacher in our classroom.  She started out watching what goes on in our classroom about once a week.  We quickly came to love the time that Ms. V (or Ms. Vanderzwan) spent in our room.  A few weeks ago, she started full time in our classroom.  Here she is introducing herself...

I am a fourth year education student from Red Deer College's Middle Years program, which is a collaborative program with the University of Alberta.  I specialize in grades 4 - 9, so I cannot wait to experience grade three - it is such a change for me! I was born in this community, and I went to school here from kindergarten to grade 12!  I live very close to the school and I love being able to walk there every morning. I am very creative and imaginative, and I love to see kids using their imaginations!  I absolutely love reading, art, sports, travelling and the outdoors.  I know that as a class we will have so much fun together, and I am already dreading leaving at the end of April.  I started coming into the classroom once a week at the beginning of September (I was even there for the first day of school!) and I've gotten to know the kids so well already.  I can't wait for us to learn from each other!  

And we can't wait to learn from her either!

She told us that she is going to be doing a lot of the teaching in our classroom as our regular teacher helps her to become an even better teacher.  For one of her first lessons, she started by having this note taped to our lockers:

We were so curious about what this was going to be all about.  She told us that we will be building a "MonstroCity" and shared this video with us.  There were so many cool monsters in that video -- we couldn't wait to get started!

In our first activity, we had to write a letter to Ms. V. telling her why we were the right person for this job.  In another activity, we had to share what we already know about building.  Here is what one of the posters looked like:

Today, we found out that we are going to have grade 4 penpals in another community who will be able to help us, because they learned all about building in grade 3.  After we read the letters they wrote to us, we wrote letters back to them telling more about ourselves and asking questions about building.

It's been an exciting start with Ms. V. and we can't wait to find out what's coming!

We were wondering...

What do you know about building?
Have you ever had a student teacher in your classroom before?