Christmas Traditions Collaboration

I am Geeking out in the House at McKinley all day, and I got to join in on this awesome activity with Ms. Lambert's 3rd graders and Ms. Ketterling's 1st graders.  They are collaborating by sharing Christmas traditions with one another.  They began by connecting using the site appear.in  This allows the students to see and chat with one another.

They then open a collaborative Google doc that looks like this:

The 1st graders worked whole group with Ms. Ketterling doing the typing.  The 3rd graders logged into their D2 apps and were able to work individually.  You will notice that the 3rd grade spots in the document are numbered - Ms. Lambert assigned each student a number so they know which square to begin typing in.  The 1st graders then asked questions that the 3rd graders could answer.  What a fun way to collaborate, and allow students to share special family traditions that happen in their homes during the holidays!

At the end of the activity, they checked in with each other again using the appear.in tool.  This is a simple, free tool to use.  I like how it allows multiple people to access your "room", so you could collaborate with more than one classroom at one time.

Ms. K & Ms. L thought of this idea last year when Ms. Lambert's room was located in Lincoln Center during construction.  But it was still fun even though they are in the same building. And I love the idea of using this to connect with other classrooms across the district - or even outside of Billings! Thanks for the awesome idea, ladies!