Each class contributed information to add throughout the week during their Global Studies class. We research for several weeks and finally this week we created our first project together on Google docs.
There are 7 second grade classrooms at Rocky River with about 140 students. We found many schools to be smaller overall to our 820 students. But we also discovered they had some of the same books, math/maths manipulatives, interactive boards and computers and playgrounds. Some classes did the same subjects and some added other things. We liked all the outside playtime everyone got. We are required only 30 minutes per day. Barriers to our education might come more as alarm clocks not going off, parents sick or working, no transportation if car rider, clothes not clean and bad weather (snow, hurricanes, storms, tornadoes) but we didn’t face barriers like some places that had war and had to pay for school to even go. We think that Australia is similar to us in the barriers they might face. Is your school similar to Rocky River or the Australian schools? Of course, we didn’t get to do all Australian schools in our research. We were most amazed by the ones in the Outback that we read about called Radio Schools. We’d like to hear from someone that has done one of these and learn more about it. We want to thank Ms. Cartwright and her students at Newrybar Primary school for their help. That school is in New South Wales. They are part of our penpal project Exploring Our Places and our post card project. Take a moment and make a comment to this new class of bloggers. Her new blog site is http://cartwheels.edublogs.org/2013/10/23/exploring-our-place/ Ms Crowther’s in Victoria was also helpful in our project and answered several questions. http://upps56jc.global2.vic.edu.au/ View Larger Map
Other schools and blog sites that helped us compare schools in other places included many continents. Even though our focus was on Australia we have explored schools in England, Canada, Africa, Brazil and Scotland during our investigations. We also appreciate the opportunity to look into Mrs. Lynch’s second grade classroom on her blog site from Canada We loved seeing the video and comparing our classrooms to theirs. They read many of the same books. We saw The Littles, Pete the Cat, lots of Dr. Seuss books and many other familiar titles. They had pattern blocks. They did math. We wonder more about games they play and what they bring in their lunches. http://teacher102.edublogs.org/2013/09/22/a-peek-into-our-grade-2-classroom/ Mrs. Monaghan and a Room with a View has been our learning partners for several years as we learn more about their class and school. Their blog site is http://aroomwithaview.edublogs.org/ Mrs. Monaghan continues to share and answer our questions often. We were amazed at the zipline in Scotland. We got involved with Burravoe Primary through a post card project and learned a lot about their small school. Many things were different yet similar here. Did you know they are on an island that you have to ride a ferry to get your car to the mainland? They often have to stay on the island because of so much wind. We noticed they had a lot of technology for such a small school. Visit their site to learn more about this small interesting Shetland Island school. https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/sh/BurravoePrimarySchool/ We enjoyed viewing the wiki between Burravoe and Longhaugh.