Collaborative Book Discussions- You Bet!

Click to access the Feb Google doc

Do you want to connect your class to others in a collaborative project that you can manage in whatever way works best for your class with no time zone issues? If so, you'll want to read on to see how easy it is and how you can be a part of this wonderful experience!



Last month LekaDeGroot (@lekadegroot), Terry Stoufer (@firstatbat) and I started a collaborative book project to help meet the needs of our above grade level readers after a conversation we had on Twitter. It started with Leka choosing several books off of the wonderful and free Epic Books site/app that each of our classes were already using. (If you've not heard of or used this wonderful resource I highly encourage you to link over and check it out!) 

A Google doc, like the one you see to the right, was then created with each of the books for the month along with a link and QR code that took our students to a Padlet board for each book. 

Each teacher decided how to best implement this project in their own class. I started out by using this in my guided reading group so I could introduce kids to the format as it was our first time using Padlet independently this year. Leka and Terry both had their kids read the books and use the Padlet fairly independently.

Here's an example of one of the Padlet walls for the story Snow Party. 

Created with Padlet

This was a wonderful way for kiddos to share their knowledge about books. My class really enjoyed reading what others had to say about the books and were just as exited to share their thoughts with the other classes. 

As Leka said in her post, and I couldn't agree more, "I am so thankful to have great teachers in my PLN who are willing to connect their students with the world..."

You can read Leka's reflection on the project on her blog, Growing Apples

If you'd like to join us this month, please do! We'd love for you to give it a try. You can download the GoogleDoc with our book selections here. All of the books are available on Epic although you're welcome to read the paper version if you have it as well. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me either here or on twitter @smalchow