Last Friday, we tried out our first Skype lesson in the third grade classroom. It was truly an AMAZING experience for our students! I found this project on the Skype in the classroom website :https://education.skype.com/. It was very easy to sign up for the lesson and I was quickly contacted by the night zookeeper. The Night Zookeeper project is a creative literacy project designed to get kids reading, writing and using technology. They are a group from the United Kingdom and offer free resources on how to implement the project into your classroom. Their website is http://www.nightzookeeper.com/ . (You can also access the site by clicking on the picture to the left!) The night zookeeper sent us via email the Night Zookeeper Book 1 which introduced our students to the night zoo. It is an imaginative and descriptive tale that allowed our student to form vivid pictures in their minds as we read them the story. When working on writing in class, we had been discussing the use of "juicy" describing words and ways to help your reader create pictures in their minds. We had also discussed ways to hook readers into your writing with interesting, exciting words and details. The night zookeeper project worked extremely well with this concept. They were drawn into the story about the interesting, unique, and magical animals that come out at night in the zoo and then had the opportunity to create their own magical animals to put into the night zoo. The night zookeeper provided us with all of the graphic organizers to help students through the process of creating their own animals. Students also created amazing hook sentences to begin a story, or mission, for their animal.
The reading and the writing portion of this project was done in the week leading up to the Skype lesson with the night zookeeper (Monday-Thursday). The night zookeeper also sent us questions and riddles for the students to answer prior to the Skype lesson. On Friday, the night zookeeper visited our classroom via Skype. The students were truly amazed at the technology and SOOOOO excited to be actually talking to the night zookeeper. He told us a "spooky" Halloween tale about the night zoo (it was a few days before Halloween) and did a WONDERFUL job interacting with the students about the night animals in his zoo as well as about the animals they created. They also discussed their answers to the riddles and questions. Afterwards, the students were very intrigued about the how the night zookeeper spoke and some of the words he used. With the zookeeper being from the United Kingdom, they immediately picked up on his accent and the way he pronounced words differently from the way we do in New Jersey. We then pulled up a map on the smartboard, explained where he was in the world, the time difference, and discussed differences in cultures. They were truly amazed and could really appreciate "how cool it was that he came to our classroom through the computer"! This was an additional element of learning that we didn't expect! The final part of the night zookeeper project is to upload the students finished animals onto the night zookeeper website so that they can become "part of the night zoo". Our students are still working on their final animals with their descriptions and the zookeeper encouraged them to work hard to finish them so he can meet them. They loved the story so much that they begged for Book 2 and the night zookeeper sent it to us so we can continue the journey!
This lesson was truly remarkable in the way it ENGAGED our students to create and describe. From the very beginning, we noticed our students were on task, creative, inspired, motivated and truly excited about the project. They were enthusiastic about sharing their animals with the class and the night zookeeper. I was truly impressed by something that was written on the night zookeeper website: "We firmly believe that a child's imagination deserves freedom. Therefore our aim is to engage children across the world and show them that they can be more than just the consumers of digital media... they can be the creators as well." This lesson indeed accomplished that goal by being unique and engaging. It also showed how powerful of a teaching tool technology can be in the classroom. I would highly recommend this project to teachers! Thank you Night Zookeeper!
Try out a Skype lesson in your classroom! All you need is a computer, webcam (which is easy to hook up) and a microphone. Skype is very easy to use and walks you through the process to make sure everything is working well.
The reading and the writing portion of this project was done in the week leading up to the Skype lesson with the night zookeeper (Monday-Thursday). The night zookeeper also sent us questions and riddles for the students to answer prior to the Skype lesson. On Friday, the night zookeeper visited our classroom via Skype. The students were truly amazed at the technology and SOOOOO excited to be actually talking to the night zookeeper. He told us a "spooky" Halloween tale about the night zoo (it was a few days before Halloween) and did a WONDERFUL job interacting with the students about the night animals in his zoo as well as about the animals they created. They also discussed their answers to the riddles and questions. Afterwards, the students were very intrigued about the how the night zookeeper spoke and some of the words he used. With the zookeeper being from the United Kingdom, they immediately picked up on his accent and the way he pronounced words differently from the way we do in New Jersey. We then pulled up a map on the smartboard, explained where he was in the world, the time difference, and discussed differences in cultures. They were truly amazed and could really appreciate "how cool it was that he came to our classroom through the computer"! This was an additional element of learning that we didn't expect! The final part of the night zookeeper project is to upload the students finished animals onto the night zookeeper website so that they can become "part of the night zoo". Our students are still working on their final animals with their descriptions and the zookeeper encouraged them to work hard to finish them so he can meet them. They loved the story so much that they begged for Book 2 and the night zookeeper sent it to us so we can continue the journey!
This lesson was truly remarkable in the way it ENGAGED our students to create and describe. From the very beginning, we noticed our students were on task, creative, inspired, motivated and truly excited about the project. They were enthusiastic about sharing their animals with the class and the night zookeeper. I was truly impressed by something that was written on the night zookeeper website: "We firmly believe that a child's imagination deserves freedom. Therefore our aim is to engage children across the world and show them that they can be more than just the consumers of digital media... they can be the creators as well." This lesson indeed accomplished that goal by being unique and engaging. It also showed how powerful of a teaching tool technology can be in the classroom. I would highly recommend this project to teachers! Thank you Night Zookeeper!
Try out a Skype lesson in your classroom! All you need is a computer, webcam (which is easy to hook up) and a microphone. Skype is very easy to use and walks you through the process to make sure everything is working well.