Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Wonder Wednesday: Connecting Wonder with Families

Anytime I can extend the school day into the evenings, (I learned at today's PD that it is called 24/7 school) I am very excited.  I continue to discuss the importance of STRONG comments on Wonderopolis. Those comments are so important because it extends my students learning beyond our classroom.  Every Wednesday, we discuss a wonder that connects to our standards but as important to me are the conversations that continue at home with the wonder.  As a parent, I often remember asking my own kids, "What's new?" and both of them would have the preverbal answer of "Nothing."  I was never sure what to ask besides what did you do in math, reading, writing? Even as a teacher, it was difficult for me have a conversation about their school day.  


With that said, getting back to Wonder comments.  Leah is in my class this year, and I suggested to the students to connect WONDER #428 Who Was St. Nick? with our class read aloud, Family Under the Bridge. Leah not only took me up on my suggestion and wrote an amazing comment. She took the suggestion of the WONDER and left her shoe out just in case St.Nick might visit that night.  Imagine the conversations with her family and what fun it was for them to start a new family tradition from reading the wonder as a family. Read her post below which she posted the next morning.     
Success = connecting family + school!
Posted by at
Labels:

2 comments:

  1. HollyJanuary 2, 2012 at 9:49 AM

    Maria -
    Your blog is so inspiring! I am a 4th grade teacher, also very technology based, who is being lucky enough to get ipads for all of my students this January. I am planning on launching Wonderopolis with them for sure, along with some other wonderful sites. My question for you is, how do you have your students post with email addresses? Have you found a safe and secure way to set up student accounts somehow? This is something I am very interested in, and would love a way to "email chat" with you about it. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MariaJanuary 2, 2012 at 10:32 AM

    Thanks for your kind words. All my students post their comments from home with parent approval. All the students in my class have parent permission. We post every Wed. as a class using my school email. It is so powerful to allow students to expand their reading audience. Follow along this year- I will be posting a lot on how I use my new iPad that I just got through a grant from NCFL. Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)