What a fabulous day of reading and connecting with students and authors for
World Read Aloud Day, otherwise known as WRAD.
World Read Aloud Day, otherwise known as WRAD.
We started the morning by reading books to each other from the We Give Books on-line library. It is a great program that connects reading and giving. For
every book you read on-line, a book is donated to a cause in need. Students are continuing to read at home in school. Last time checked, we donted 71 books!
Yeah!
Our first skype was made with third graders at an elementary school in our town. It was such fun because some knew or had Mrs. Ciccone as a teacher, and we had siblings in each class. We alternated by sharing some original writing
and then recommended books. We all enjoyed it so much we are planning to connect classes again this year.
With great anticipation we waited for Lynn Plourde to call into our classroom
next. Kids greeted her wearing some ear candy and a word-picture picture frame.
She read to us from Summer’s Vacation a beautiful rhyming book with
spectacular illustrations. She shared with us her job as an idea detective, her
writing process, and even her rejections. We appreciated the time she spent
answering all of our questions thoughtfully. She was as great as she is in her
Making Writing Visible videos.
Lynn was kind enough to mail us the book she read from, Summer's vacation. We would not have been able to purchase it on our own because it is out of print. THANKS to our friend, Lynn Plourde. :)
The morning ended with a Skype with a year 5 class (grade 4 in USA) in the Turks & Caicos. We found this connection through classmate, Peter. His cousin, Theo is a student in Ms. Buddle’s class. We shared student writing and book
recommendations. We heard some fabulous stories the students were in the
process of writing, and learned of books that many of us added to our TBR list.
It was fun to hear some of their accents too.
Thank you so much to Mrs. Bersani for connecting us with her nephew's class and Ms. Buddle for agreeing to skype with us to celebrate literacy.
In the afternoon we had two author skypes. We joined Ms. Copland and her 4th
graders to listen to Ingrid Law and Dori Butler read aloud from their books.
Ingrid Law is the author of Savvy (which she read from and left us at a
cliff hanger) and the sequel Scumble. We received personalized
autographed pictures in the mail to be passed out to the students today. A
wonderful and thoughtful surprise for the kids.
Dori Butler read from Do You Know the Monkey Man? A mystery about a
girl named Samantha in the search for her father. Ms. Butler also stopped
reading at a cliff hanger. A lottery is planned to see who can read the book
first.
I am so thankful to the students, teachers, authors and readers for making this
day possible. We will continue to spread the love and importance of reading to
friends, families and classmates.
day possible. We will continue to spread the love and importance of reading to
friends, families and classmates.