Our first Skype meeting of 2012-2013

As part of the Global Read Aloud, our class was asked to link up with a 5th grade class in Portland, Maine. Mrs. Smith introduced their class which has students from all over the world!
We also shared our ideas about the book we're both reading, The One and Only Ivan.
We sang O Canada for them; they said the Pledge of Allegiance for us! It was pretty neat! Various students also shared greetings in many languages including Gaelic, Mi'kmaq, Arabic, Afrikaans, etc.
There were some really neat similarities in our schools: both our classrooms overlook water; their school is located on a peninsula like ours. But the similarities ended there as they were amazed that our whole school population is about 1/4 of their school's population, which only serves K-5!

Following our 1/2 hr chat, we decided we'd become "pen pals" through the safe online educational site, Edmodo. This fits in PERFECTLY with our upcoming exploration of cultural regions as part of social studies!

Here are some shots of the experience:

Skyping with Mrs. Smith's class in Portland, ME