Creativity and Collaboration in the Classroom

My students never cease to amaze me with their critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. After we finished our Global Read Aloud we just weren't ready to leave it alone so we decided to do a group project based on the book.  We wanted to retell Marty McGuire in our own words.  After much thinking and organizing, we were put into small groups.  Our first job was to read the chapter we were given and to summarize the MAIN ideas.  This was HARD work- lots of discussion took place! Deciding what to include was very difficult for us! We wanted to include EVERYTHING!

Once that job was done we were ready to retell our chapter.  We brainstormed for all the different ways we could show what happened in our chapter. The best part was each group had the CHOICE  of how they wanted to share their "story."    The class was abuzz with ideas.  The conversations were incredible; the problem solving fantastic; the collaboration exciting and the acceptance of everyone's ideas was heartwarming.  We had groups making stick puppets, some acting out their chapter and filming it, some groups drawing their pictures using one of the drawing apps, then importing the pictures into Pic collage and then writing or talking about it.  They had SO much FUN and the learning was fabulous.  This project took several periods to do and many times we thought we had taken on too much but we stuck with it and the end results and learning were well worth the effort.

Here is a small sample of some of our work.

This image was done using Draw and Tell.  Once they had chosen their characters they practiced their script and then recorded their voices. 

Puppets that were made for a puppet show.  Can you tell who is Veronica Grace and who is Marty McGuire?

Look at the frog in the pond!

We LOVED reading Marty McGuire.  What is your favourite book?