Making Monsters with Students in Alabama
February 05, 2015
On Tuesday, students in Mrs. Cameron's second grade class participated in a Google Hangout with second grade students at Lee-Scott Academy in Auburn, AL. The classes have been partnered to work together on The Monster Project.
The Monster Project encourages the development of reading and writing skills while integrating technology into the classroom. Using monster drawings as a vehicle, students exchange written descriptions of their hand-drawn, made up monsters via a project wiki, and then attempt to follow the instructions and recreate their partner's monster without ever looking at the original drawing. During the project, students create, discuss, describe, interpret, analyze, organize and assess their monsters as well as the monsters of their peers.
Here's how it works:
Here's how it works:
- Student A uses the drawing program Pixie to draw an original monster
- Student A makes a word-web to brainstorm adjectives and descriptive phrases about their monster
- Student A uses Google Docs to create a final written description of their monster.
- Student B at a different school, who has never seen the monster drawing, receives the monster drawing's description via a wiki
- Student B attempts to recreate their partner's monster drawing based solely on the description given
Students also took turns asking questions about each others' schools and cities. They learned that they have many things in common. For example, Lee-Scott students participate in an annual musical performance, celebrate Grandparent's Day, have a Fall Festival, and use iPads in their classroom. There were also differences, such as it snows in Auburn (although just a few inches a year), after school clubs start in 3rd grade, and they have PE five days each week.
Mrs. O'Mullane's Class
Over the course of the year, students in second grade collaborated with students in Alabama, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire in this year's Monster Project. View their Monster Projects here:
Mrs. Cameron / Mrs. Masterson's Class
Ms. Deegan's Class
Mrs. Owen's Class
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