I can’t remember exactly how I learned about the Global Read Aloud last year. It’s highly likely that my friend Natalie introduced me to it because she’s awesome. I loved reading the Lauren Castillo books to my class and we loved connecting in the ways that I was able.

This year’s K-2 author is Mem Fox, someone whose books I’ve loved for a long time and I’ve been looking forward to the start of #GRA17 since the summer. Unfortunately, the timing worked out such that the 1st week of the Global Read Aloud is our October break so we started last week!

I read Koala Lou to my class, showed them where Mem Fox (and our own Mr. Kris) are from on our world map rug, and told them exciting connections would be ahead. (and emailed and tweeted and facebooked madly to work on said connections!)

The next day we watched a video of Wally Amos reading Koala Lou!

We started a padlet and are anxiously awaiting some more responses! Would you be friends with Koala Lou?

The next day … drumroll … we were able to introduce ourselves to some 1st and 2nd graders in Williston, VT.

And later that day our 5th grade buddies helped us use Seesaw to answer “How is Koala Lou feeling? How do you know?”

With the guidance of Seesaw teacher rockstars I found through the Seesaw instagram feed, I was able to upload illustrations from the book to the class journal for the students to copy and edit using the Text option.

Look at what a wonderful job they did answering the question with evidence from the text!

I’m excited to continue with the Global Read Aloud when we return to school on October 9th!