Global Read Aloud 2015!

Global Read Aloud 2015 is almost here!  The official kick off is October 5th, so there is still plenty of time to register and join in the fun.  This is an amazing project for teaching your kids that they live in a connected world.  The goal of this project is to join classrooms across the globe through the shared reading of a book.  The book choices for this year are shown above, and if you click the image you can visit the Global Read Aloud site with all kinds of info.

Participating in GRA with my kindergarten class was awesome and opened up a whole new world of collaboration and tech integration for my classroom!  I learned how to use Edmodo, Skype, Twitter, Kidblog to connect with other educators and classrooms.  My students LOVED Skyping (is that a word?!) with other classes and sharing what we loved about the books from the GRA author study. We continued these connections long after the GRA was over, learning about what kindergartners do in other parts of our country.  So.  Stinking.  Cool!  I loved gathering awesome learning ideas from other educators that were connected to these books we were reading, and having examples to share with my students.  I cannot say enough about this project and how grateful I am that my friend Desiree Caskey suggested I give it a try!  One of the things I will miss about being in the classroom this fall is that I won't be able to participate in GRA 2015!

So ... it's up to you!  Let's go, Billings!  Connect with other classes in the district, the state or the country by reading stories from this year's author study of Amy Krouse Rosenthal (these books look awesome for primary) starting with Chopsticks!  If you teach older kids, you can click here to see the 2015 books for the age group you teach.

You can find lots of information on the GRA site, but you can also follow its creator Pernille Ripp on Twitter @pernilleripp and Tweet to the hashtag #GRA15.  Or email me!  Yay!