NHPTV Writers Contest

Hello and Happy New Year's Eve, Giraffes! I wanted to tell you about writing contest that begins tomorrow. NHPTV is holding its annual Writers Contest, and students in grades K-5 can submit stories they've written and illustrated between January 1st and March 31st. Once all of the stories are submitted, judges will select a first, second, and third place winner at each grade level. Some stories will also be selected for honorable mention. It is completely up to you if you'd like to enter--I know many of you like to write and illustrate, and I would love for you to enter a story so you can share your talent with others! It can be a story from class or a story you've written at home. Stories submitted by second graders can be true, fictional, or you could even submit a poem. All writing should be between 100 and 350 words. More guidelines can be found on their Entry Form!

Best of luck, my talented authors and illustrators! I will see you on Monday :)

A Package For Our GRA Pals!

This year, our class will be participating in the Global Read Aloud with an author study of Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Other classrooms at SMS will also be participating, as well as several classrooms from around the world! We are going to do our author study along with a second grade class at Outlook School in Outlook, Saskatchewan  in Canada! We will read and discuss our books together using twitter (our classroom account is @2RGiraffes) to send each other questions and responses using the hashtags #GRA15 and #SaskToStratham. We will also literally read together from time to time using Google Hangout!

In order to kick off our author study with our Global Read Aloud Buddies, we wrote them letters and and put together a package of all things New Hampshire. We send them maple salt water taffy, maple drops, a small container of maple syrup, rocks and shells from Rye beach, stickers, post cards, pictures, a class letter about NH, and some U.S. Currency!

Each of our letters/drawings told our buddies a bit about our school, and we also asked them a few questions about theirs! 

We sent out our package on Tuesday, and we are hoping it arrives to our buddies soon! They've also put a package in the mail for us, and we are very excited to see what is inside :)