Part 2: "What Can You See?" and Skype!

There has been a lot of excitement this past week with regards to our "What can you see?" digital book project! From mentioning Mrs. Harrison's class in our daily discussions and recounting what we saw in her class' video book, our students have been asking great questions which we thought were worth exploring!

In order to take our learning one step further, and value the opportunity for our class to talk about, listen, and learn from other students in another community, we thought what better way to do this than to connect our classes via Skype!

In preparation for our Skype session, we wanted our students to come up with three questions that they would like Mrs. Harrison's class to answer so that we could gain a deeper understanding of their school and where they live! Here is what we came up with:

1. We can't see a pond in our school yard. What animals have you seen living in your pond?

2. We don't have any farms near us but we saw you have farms near your schoolyard. What do you think the farmers grow?

3. What are bull rushes and milkweeds? 

On Thursday, our students came in after lunch extremely excited knowing that it was after attendance whereby we would have our first ever Skype session with Mrs. Harrison's class from Lake Simcoe Public School. "Oooo's" and "ahh's" filled our classroom as we launched our session and our classes were amazed with how they could see each other and hear each other's voices including Mrs. Harrison's! 

Here is what we learned about Mrs. Harrison's class and schoolyard:  

1. Ducks, Canada geese, and frogs live in their pond. They also see "sparkles" and "shimmers."

2. The farmers grow pumpkins at the farm and lots of vegetables like cabbage and carrots.

3. Milk weeds are "little fuzzy things" at the pond. One student even went as far as to explain to us in detail how they change in the season. "They are plants and in the fall they turn brown and fall off and there is fluff inside which are seeds!"

Here are the three great questions Mrs. Harrison's class asked us about our class and schoolyard:

1. Where is your school? What is your school called?

2. What is in your "box?"

3. What is the "pink thing" on top of the box?

We had a lot of fun answering them and teaching our new Kindergarten friends all about our school and where we live!

To conclude our Skype session, Mrs. Harrison's class came up with "compliments" for our schoolyard (what a nice touch!). Here are what some of her students had to say:

"I want to compliment your class for your questions."

"We like your playground."

As a way of consolidating our new learning about Lake Simcoe P.S. and our first Skype session, we asked our students what they enjoyed about this experience! Here are their thoughts:

"I liked how we talked to Mrs. Harrison and they talked to us - It was cool!" - I.D. (SK)

"I liked when they talked to us. We could hear them." - A.M. (JK)

"I liked when I got to ask them our Question because they speaked back and answered and taught us something new." - L.D. (SK)

"I liked when they were talking with you and Ms. Theis." - A.C. (SK)

All in all, this experience gave our students the opportunity to not only connect with other students, but it allowed them to gain an understanding and appreciation for different communities and how these communities can be different than their own. We truly look forward to exploring other "What can you see?" videos and reconnecting again over Skype with Mrs. Harrison's class as a forum for discussing similarities and differences between what we see and our own schoolyards!

A sincere thank you to Mrs. Harrison, her DECE, students and school for opening up their classroom and schoolyard to us and teaching us something new about the world around us! From our class to yours, we look forward to growing and learning together this year and reconnecting very soon!

Sincerely,
Ms. Schmidt, Ms. Theis, and our students