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Winter around the World and in Athens, GA

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Winter around the World and in Athens, GA

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From Andy Plemmons

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We Created, Produced and Published Our Winter Story With Over 135 Schools From Around The World

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We Created, Produced and Published Our Winter Story With Over 135 Schools From Around The World

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Over the last month, children, teachers, communities and families around the world have created winter stories, songs, poetry, recipes, books, art work, personal narratives, maps and so many other beautiful projects to add to the Winter Around The World project.

We can't wait to tell you more about the upcoming projects which include birthday celebrations and nursery rhymes.

We can continue to share on this with the special news, sharing and creating from your school community too.

With all of the special winter projects being created, it was time to produce and publish an eBook so it would be shared with everyone around the world.

For this project, I used two of my favorite digital tools.... eduBuncee and FlipSnackEdu. These are both digital storytelling tools with a few features that make each unique.

Using eduBuncee, Brianna, who is an intern for Cantata, and myself created a Happy Holidays Buncee from Cantata and Capstone. We picked several projects from around the world to include in this one, along with a fun video from our team too.

Next it was time to pull together all of the winter projects for our global story. Everyone who participated in the project added their winter stories to the collaborative Google Presentation using as many slides or pages needed. This one was very very large with almost 500 pages.

My friend Molly Chester helped me by condensing this Google Presentation and turning it into a clickable PDF. It was awesome because the links within the slides stayed embedded.

For this one, I used FlipSnackEdu. It worked out perfect with the size and allowed me to upload the clickable PDF that Molly had created.

I used a few of the slides I had created within eduBuncee....and just love the way these two smashed together so nicely.

So here it is, friends. The global story that we all had a voice in and one that will be very special when teaching others around the world about what winter means to us.

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We Created, Produced and Published Our Winter Story With Over 135 Schools From Around The World

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Over the last month, children, teachers, communities and families around the world have created winter stories, songs, poetry, recipes, books, art work, personal narratives, maps and so many other beautiful projects to add to the Winter Around The World project. We can't wait to tell you more about the upcoming projects which include birthday celebrations and nursery rhymes.

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The Final Winter Around The World FlipSnack created by children everywhere.  

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The Final Winter Around The World FlipSnack created by children everywhere.  

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Winter Around The World, Global Story 2015

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Winter Around The World A Global Story Created by Young Voices, Minds and Hands Around the World in 2015 Inspired by "Winter..The Coldest Season of All" from Cantata Learning Project Arranged by Shannon McClintock Miller & Brianna Cua For this project, we invited young people, teacher librarians, educators and families to participate in the Winter Around the World Project inspired by the Cantata Learning book, Winter...The Coldest Season of All.

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Happy Holidays From Cantata Learning and Capstone! 

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Happy Holidays From Cantata Learning and Capstone! 

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Created with winter around the world projects

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Winter Greetings From Cantata Learning 2015

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Creating An Interactive Map With Our 2nd Grade Friends & Nick For The Winter Around The World Project

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Creating An Interactive Map With Our 2nd Grade Friends & Nick For The Winter Around The World Project

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Last week my friend Jane Harvey posted a tweet with the @RosemontEagles Winter Around The World project.

They were beautiful illustrations the 2nd graders created showing their winter in Virginia. Their teacher Nicole Garzia, teacher librarian Jeanette Reynolds, and Jane, who is the instructional technology specialist, collaborated and created this project with their 2nd graders.

One thing that caught my eye when I looked at Jane's tweet was their use of the map in the center of the display. They were making a physical map to show the connections and creations being made around the world.

I happened to be with my friend Kat Coughlan, who is the project manager for Cantata Learning. We started talking about what an awesome project it was and then Kat told me about an idea she had to tie in with our project.

Kat's husband Nick works as a GIS specialist for the United States Geological Survey Department. As she shared our Winter Around the World project with him, they thought it would be great to have Nick create, along with students involved in the winter project, an interactive map that will contain the different school communities included. It could even include the individual projects created by these schools too through links embedded in the map.

So I sent a tweet back to Jane to see if the children she worked with on the project would be interested in taking their work one step further to help Nick create this map.

As she tweeted me back I could tell Jane was as excited as me. We set up a Skype for the next week and today....

we Skyped with Nick, Iris Streeter's 2nd graders at Salem Elementary, which is where Jane and teacher librarian, Lindsey Olinda, were located at, and Jeanette and Nicole with the 2nd graders at Rosemont. Jane works with both schools so it was fun to bring these students together on Skype to share their winter ideas and connections.

To start the Skype, Nick introduced himself and asked the 2nd graders in both locations what they enjoyed about the winter season.

Their winters in Virginia were different from Nick's in Colorado so this was a wonderful conversation for all of them.

Then Nick shared a book about maps. They looked inside to find Virginia and Colorado. It was fun for all of them to talk about the things that were included on each to represent the state.

He then took the 2nd graders into Google Earth.

Nick showed the children where they were on the map. He talked about making a map in Google Earth and adding different locations and information. Nick started with their locations and added links that even took them to more information.

Then he found his neighborhood.

They enjoyed seeing where he lived too by clicking on a link he embedded.

Afterwards we asked the 2nd graders if they would like to help us put together an interactive map for the project with winter pictures, stories, and more. They were excited to help.

We are going to have our 2nd grade friends in Tracy Ferguson and Staci Braun's classes in Van Meter, Iowa help too.

It was really amazing to see how far away, but also how close, our classmates, teachers and friends can be. A project like Winter Around the World, along with Skype, can help us make these connections and opportunities.

We can't wait to see the map these wonderful 2nd graders create with Nick....and we can't wait to share it with all of you.

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Creating An Interactive Map With Our 2nd Grade Friends & Nick For The Winter Around The World Project

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Last week my friend Jane Harvey posted a tweet with the @RosemontEagles Winter Around The World project. They were beautiful illustrations the 2nd graders created showing their winter in Virginia. Their teacher Nicole Garzia, teacher librarian Jeanette Reynolds, and Jane, who is the instructional technology specialist, collaborated and created this project with their 2nd graders.

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Jam Session With Music Producer Mark Oblinger, Book Publisher Kat Coughlan & The Second Graders In Van Meter, Iowa

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Jam Session With Music Producer Mark Oblinger, Book Publisher Kat Coughlan & The Second Graders In Van Meter, Iowa

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Last week there was a very special jam session going on in the second grade classrooms of Tracy Ferguson and Staci Braun's at Van Meter.

The week before we Skyped with Lisa Bell, songwriter, and Emily Bell, illustrator, for Winter...The Coldest Season Of All.

Since the second graders have been composing, singing and recording their own winter songs with their music teacher Marcia Fries, we knew Skyping with Mark would be the perfect way to bring this PBL project all together.

Mark talked to the second graders about making sounds with different instruments. It was fun for them to guess what the sounds he was making.

Kat shared what she was responsible for in her job and told them what it takes to bring a Cantata Learning book together with music.

It was then time for the second graders to share the winter songs they created.

Mark even played along as they jammed out in their classroom.

After the jam session, the little ones asked Mark and Kat lots of wonderful questions about music, writing, production, and all kinds of things they wanted to know about our two special guests.

We ended the day with one more jam session with Mark and Kat. They played instruments....

and so did we! It was great fun and something that the children at Van Meter will not forget as they sing and share their winter songs throughout the season too.

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Jam Session With Music Producer Mark Oblinger, Book Publisher Kat Coughlan & The Second Graders In Van Meter, Iowa

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Last week there was a very special jam session going on in the second grade classrooms of Tracy Ferguson and Staci Braun's at Van Meter. The week before we Skyped with Lisa Bell, songwriter, and Emily Bell, illustrator, for Winter...The Coldest Season Of All.

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Picture Books & Chapter Books For Winter and the Holidays....A Wonderful Way To Celebrate This Time Of Year

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Picture Books & Chapter Books For Winter and the Holidays....A Wonderful Way To Celebrate This Time Of Year

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With winter here and the holidays upon us, my daughter Brianna and I thought it would be perfect to pull together all of the wonderful winter and holiday books that are available for all of us to read and share.

We created a Padlet filled with Winter and Holiday Picture Books.

You can go to the Padlet that we created here.

And one for Winter and Holiday Chapter Books.

And please share winter and holiday picture books that you love and share with your children too by clicking on the Padlet walls and adding to them. We can't wait to see what all of you share too.

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Picture Books & Chapter Books For Winter and the Holidays....A Wonderful Way To Celebrate This Time Of Year

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With winter here and the holidays upon us, my daughter Brianna and I thought it would be perfect to pull together all of the wonderful winter and holiday books that are available for all of us to read and share. We created a Padlet filled with Winter and Holiday Picture Books.

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We Brought A Little Winter Fun To A Group Of First Graders In Minnesota!

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We Brought A Little Winter Fun To A Group Of First Graders In Minnesota!

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Yesterday I spent the day with my friends from Cantata Learning and Capstone in Minnesota. In the afternoon we were invited to come to a very special school and share the Winter Around the World project we have been collaborating on with other children, teacher librarians and school communities around the world.

We went to Hillcrest Elementary School to visit my new teacher librarian friend Belle Nelson.

From the minute we walked into the library to meet the three classes of 1st graders, I knew it was going to be one very special day.

We kicked off our time together reading and singing Winter...The Coldest Season of All from Cantata Learning. The little ones loved playing bells as they sang and moved along to the book.

(You can get to the eBook too at this link....Username snowing and Password singing)

Next, Belle put the children into groups to rotate through four stations that were set up throughout their library.

They would create penguins or snowmen out of clay....

Decorate a pinwheel for their winter garden outside of the library windows....

Read winter books in their super cozy reading spaces....

and make Wintery Mix in the cooking station with a recipe created by our friend Sarah Schuette at Capstone. Sarah creates a lot of the cookbooks at Capstone so we were very honored she shared this special recipe with us for our day together.

(Please feel free to copy and share the recipe for Wintery Mix with your students.)

I was excited to be in the cooking station for our time in their library. I enjoyed hearing them talk about how they love to cook and bake yummy treats during the holidays.

It was fun having Randy Klinger and Amy Cox from Capstone helping with this station and the others.

This was a fun tie in to our Winter Around the World project but also a terrific activity for following directions, measuring and working on those fine motor skills.

The little ones took turns measuring the ingredients and putting them in the big bag to mix. Then they decorated a small bag for their very own wintery mix.

We also printed off Wintery Mix recipe cards for them to put in their bag to take home. This is an easy recipe for them to make during the holidays by themselves or with a little help.

The QR code on the recipe card will take them to the Winter...The Coldest Season Of All. They were excited to know they could share the book and song with their families too.

I loved the winter pinwheel garden station. What a creative idea Belle had in putting this together.

Kat Coughlan from Cantata Learning helped the children in this station. She commented how they enjoyed creating pinwheels that would send their wishes out into the winter air....So sweet and creative of them.

Joan Berge from Cantata Learning read with the children in the winter book station.

They loved getting cozy and reading all kinds of beautiful winter books from the library.

The 1st grade teachers helped the students create penguins, snowmen and other wintery things in the clay station. I loved to see what they were creating...everyone was different and unique.

Their creations and stories they told on this day will become part of the Winter Around The World global collaborative story that we are putting together. We will add pictures from our day together, pictures of their winter creations and the winter garden and the Wintery Mix recipe.

Thank you Belle and all of the 1st grade students and teachers at Hillcrest Elementary.
Kat, Joan, Amy, Randy and I loved our time with all of you in your amazing library. We are so happy you will be part of the winter story now too.

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We Brought A Little Winter Fun To A Group Of First Graders In Minnesota!

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Yesterday I spent the day with my friends from Cantata Learning and Capstone in Minnesota. In the afternoon we were invited to come to a very special school and share the Winter Around the World project we have been collaborating on with other children, teacher librarians and school communities around the world.

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Winter Is Here.....Find Lots To Do With Your Kids On The Winter Symbaloo & Winter Around The World Project!

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Winter Is Here.....Find Lots To Do With Your Kids On The Winter Symbaloo & Winter Around The World Project!

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Winter is here....With snow on the ground in a lot of places and the holidays upon us, we are all looking for winter activities, resources and places to engage our young people in learning throughout the season and all year long.

I have created a Winter Symbaloo that contains lots of different places to find wonderful winter resources and activities. You can find it here.

One of my favorite things on this Symbaloo is the Winter Around the World project that is children, librarians, teachers and families are participating in all over the world.

In our Winter Around the World Tackk, you can find everything you will need for this project including the Cantata Learning eBook Winter...The Coldest Season of All to kick off the inspiration for this project and lots of amazing learning, creating and collaborating.

With all Symbaloo webmixes you can not only use this free social bookmarking tool, you can also Stop Updates and take the webmix as your own, making changes and adding your own awesome winter resources too.

And search for additional Winter Webmixes in the right hand corner of the drop down menu. I always find great treasures here.

Over the next few days I will adding more winter resources to the Winter Symbaloo. I hope you and your students check it out....and please join us for the Winter Around the World Project too.

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Winter Is Here.....Find Lots To Do With Your Kids On The Winter Symbaloo & Winter Around The World Project!

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Winter is here....With snow on the ground in a lot of places and the holidays upon us, we are all looking for winter activities, resources and places to engage our young people in learning throughout the season and all year long.

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Look At The Weather In Iowa With These Ms. Walker's 2nd Graders & Their Song "We Win In Winter"

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Look At The Weather In Iowa With These Ms. Walker's 2nd Graders & Their Song "We Win In Winter"

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This afternoon my friend Lynn Kleinmeyer who is the teacher librarian at Titan Hill Intermediate in Council Bluffs, Iowa sent me a very special message on Twitter.

She has been working on a winter song with the 2nd graders in Nancy Walker's classroom for the Winter Around The World project. They used the Cantata Learning Winter...The Coldest Season of All book as their inspiration to write their very own winter song called We Win In Winter with Nancy.

Today they brought in our amazing friend Josh Allen to help them with the green screen recording so they could put a snowy scene in the background as they sang.

It sure looks like these three teachers had a wonderful time collaborating and working together on this project.

Way to go Ms. Walker and all of your amazing 2nd graders! This is one of the best winter songs and it will be so fun for other children around the world to see what winter it is like in Iowa.

I love how the 2nd graders were dressed in their winter gear to make us feel like we were part of the snowy scene as they sang.

And just wait until you hear We Win In Winter from these 2nd graders in Iowa. I hope they will inspire you to be part of our Winter Around The World project too.

This will be part of the Winter Around The World collaborative eBook that we are putting together for this project. You can see it here.

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Look At The Weather In Iowa With These Ms. Walker's 2nd Graders & Their Song "We Win In Winter"

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This afternoon my friend Lynn Kleinmeyer who is the teacher librarian at Titan Hill Intermediate in Council Bluffs, Iowa sent me a very special message on Twitter. She has been working on a winter song with the 2nd graders in Nancy Walker's classroom for the Winter Around The World project.

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Working Through The Winter PBL Projects and Having Students Publish "Celebrating Winter In Iowa"

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Working Through The Winter PBL Projects and Having Students Publish "Celebrating Winter In Iowa"

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This is the story of my little friends at Van Meter and the PBL project we are doing together for the Winter Around the World Project with Cantata Learning.

They have been working on this project with their classroom teachers Tracy and Staci for the last two weeks. During this time, they read the book, learned the winter song and had wonderful conversations about winter in their community of Van Meter, Iowa.

Tracy and Staci worked with the students to brainstorm different topics of interest. They would all work with a group to research and create part of a collaborative digital winter story within their schools, which would then become part of a global digital winter story.

After they had a list of Winter Project-Based Learning Student Options, the students were able to select the groups they would work in for the winter project. With all of these different focus areas all of the teachers that work with the 2nd graders came together including...

Marsha Fries, the music teacher....

Cathy Robey, the art teacher, and Kim James, the teacher librarian.

The students composed, sang and produced three amazing winter songs with Marsha. You can read all about this part of the PBL here.

Everyone of the 2nd graders created their very own art work to be part of their digital story.

They focused on the topics that they picked for the project including Iowa Winter Traditions,

and so many more.

Another part of their PBL was working on researching and writing about their topics.

They used Winter...The Coldest Season Of All from Cantata Learning as the springboard for their conversation and research about winter.

As they sang along to the book, the students thought of all of the things they could share about winter in Van Meter too. The music made it extra fun to learn, brainstorm and create new ideas for their book too.

They also used Capstone's PebbleGo Science and looked up Seasons.

They were also able to find eBooks within Capstone Interactive that focused on their winter topics such as...

skiing, and so much more.

I loved watching them work on the winter topics within their groups. This group was focusing on places in Iowa that you can ski.

They marked all of the places on the map and were telling me personal connections to each.

They then researched the ski resorts to find information that could be included in their book.

I also loved the writing that I saw from the 2nd graders. Through the resources and personal connections, they had amazing stories to tell.

On Friday, Tracy and Staci published the story that their students created in eduBuncee. It contains illustrations by each one, songs being sung, and stories that shows what they know and learned about winter in Iowa.

You can view it at the top of the post where it is embedded or here at this link.

Just look at a few of the topic slides....

and just see what each group put into their Buncee as part of the global winter story.

And look at how the Van Meter winter story has become part of the global winter story too. You can view and add to it at this link.

It is very special looking through our story and seeing children from schools around the world contributing their winter stories, songs, illustrations, personal narratives, and more.

We cannot wait to see what you and your children add to the winter story too.

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Working Through The Winter PBL Projects and Having Students Publish "Celebrating Winter In Iowa"

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This is the story of my little friends at Van Meter and the PBL project we are doing together for the Winter Around the World Project with Cantata Learning. They have been working on this project with their classroom teachers Tracy and Staci for the last two weeks.

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The 2nd Graders Became Composers, Singers, Illustrators and Music Producers For The Winter Around The World Project With Cantata Learning

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The 2nd Graders Became Composers, Singers, Illustrators and Music Producers For The Winter Around The World Project With Cantata Learning

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Students and teachers participating around the world are reading and singing Winter...The Coldest Season of All as a way to kick off the project. All of the Cantata Learning stories are paired with wonderful music that will definitely inspire and engage young learners as they read, share, and create new understanding and meaning about a variety of topics.

During our Skype last week, the Van Meter second graders sang for the other schools, songwriter and illustrator. You could tell they practiced a lot...it was awesome!

With the story about winter including new vocabulary and concepts, this can be a way to extend and enrich learning about seasons, community, weather and more.

Our friend Kasey Bell created a magnetic winter poetry activity using Google Slides from the vocabulary words in Winter...The Coldest Season of All and the brainstorming Lynn Kleinmeyer's students did within Padlet in the library.

You can read about this activity and get the magnetic winter poem here.

The sheet music and lyrics are included in both the print and eBook.

The music for each one of the Cantata Learning books is included on a CD in the back of the book. It can also be played from the website, downloaded and purchased from iTunes.

This gives our young learners so many ways to access the stories and music they love in the library, classroom and at home.

With this being a project-based learning experience for the second graders, Tracy and Staci had their students choose the winter topics they wanted to focus on during the PBL, which also put them into self-selected groups.

The students told me, " We read the words, listened to the song and looked at the pictures to help us write our new songs." They couldn't wait to share them.

I love how Marsha worked with them on the arrangement. It was fun seeing this on their "sheet music" as they called it.

When we started the project I created the Winter Symbaloo as a place for all of us to find resources, books, snowflake and winter digital activities and more.

As part of our project, every school is going to create a piece of the global winter story that we are putting together in this Google Slides presentation. It can be a story, poem, narrative, song, art work...whatever they want to create for the story.

The Winter Around The World Collaborative Story can be seen here.

To give everyone some ideas, I included several of my favorite digital tools that would be great to use when creating your piece of the collaborative story.

The 2nd graders are going to use eduBuncee to create their winter story. With Buncee they will add original art, add text, voice and music to the story.

They are creating beautiful winter illustrations to support their PBL for the class Buncee with the art teacher Cathy Robey.

Within a Buncee, sound clips can be added using Soundcloud. I love using Soundcloud because it is very easy to record on a computer or with the app. Also, easy to embed and share.

We recorded the groups with Soundcloud after they felt comfortable with the songs composed.

You can listen to Winter Snowflakes....

These will be used throughout the Buncee.

Today the teacher librarian Kim James helped Marsha record the groups singing using an iPad and uploaded them to YouTube. These can also be added to a Buncee.

In the screenshot above you can see the pages on the left hand side which contain the videos and art work.

On November 23, we are Skyping with Mark Oblinger who arranged and produced the book.

After the Skype, we are going to use Beatlab to experience with creating music like Mark does.

We can even upload the songs recorded in YouTube and Soundcloud adding their own "beats" or music over the top.

To learn more about the Winter Around The World project, please visit our Tackk. This is where you can sign up, find the Cantata Learning book and other resources online, and add to the collaborative winter story.

We cannot wait to share the Buncee with all of you next week....and we cannot wait to see the stories, songs, poems, art work, and other creations your students create too.

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The 2nd Graders Became Composers, Singers, Illustrators and Music Producers For The Winter Around The World Project With Cantata Learning

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Students and teachers participating around the world are reading and singing Winter...The Coldest Season of All as a way to kick off the project. All of the Cantata Learning stories are paired with wonderful music that will definitely inspire and engage young learners as they read, share, and create new understanding and meaning about a variety of topics.

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Tell Your Winter Stories With eduBuncee Through Interactive Illustrations, Voice and Text

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Tell Your Winter Stories With eduBuncee Through Interactive Illustrations, Voice and Text

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The children in the Amana Elementary Library are singing along toWinter...The Coldest Season of All, from Cantata Learning, as their teacher librarian Heather Fox holds up the beautiful illustrations for all to see.

They are part of the Winter Around The World Project and are preparing their Iowa winter story to share with other students, teachers and communities in different areas of the world. Heather and the kids have decided to draw illustrations; write their winter memories; put their work in a digital storytelling platform and add voice over the top of their art work.

This will be a beautiful personal narrative from Amana, Iowa....and what makes it extra special is the authentic work created and led by the children.

After brainstorming, they have decided that eduBuncee is the perfect tool for their winter story.

With eduBuncee they will be able to create the perfect personal narrative about Iowa winters to include everything they want and more.

You can sign up for eduBuncee here. Heather created one, uploaded all of their personal art work and then had each student come to add their text and voice.

She is still working on the final version....and they cannot wait to share it with all of us as part of the Winter Around the World collaborative global story we are creating in this Google Slides presentation.

There are several projects that have been added already to our story.....You will get more ideas by looking at this too.

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Tell Your Winter Stories With eduBuncee Through Interactive Illustrations, Voice and Text

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The children in the Amana Elementary Library are singing along toWinter...The Coldest Season of All, from Cantata Learning, as their teacher librarian Heather Fox holds up the beautiful illustrations for all to see. They are part of the Winter Around The World Project and are preparing their Iowa winter story to share with other students, teachers and communities in different areas of the world.

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We Skyped With The Cantata Learning Songwriter & Artist Who Are The Winter Inspiration For Our Project

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We Skyped With The Cantata Learning Songwriter & Artist Who Are The Winter Inspiration For Our Project

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The teacher librarians, classroom teachers, music and art teachers involved thought it would be awesome to learn with the songwriter and illustrator of the Cantata Learning book that is giving us our inspiration for this project.

So I reached out and brought them to these three schools for a little Skype visit today.

Lisa Bell, author and songwriter, and Emily Brooks, illustrator, created Winter...The Coldest Season Of All with Cantata Learning.

The young learners in these three schools have been reading and singing this book as they learn, create, share and collaborate throughout the winter project.

We loved kicking off with the Van Meter 2nd graders signing to all of us.

It was very exciting for all of us to Skype with the ones behind the book. Kat Coughlan, product development for Cantata Learning, was also part of our fun.

Lisa told us how her son inspired her to write Winter...The Coldest Season of All. She also reminded the students to keep on writing, singing and having fun with the process.

We loved seeing how Emily created the illustrations by drawing on paper first.

She then uploads them into Photoshop and layers the drawings to create the beautiful illustrations in Winter...The Coldest Season of All.

The students in Amana and Van Meter are using eduBuncee to create their winter stories. The process that Emily uses is very similar to how the children are creating their stories and illustrations.

They are drawing them by hand on paper, uploading them into eduBuncee, and adding interactive stickers and animations to make their winter stories come to life.

We had such a great time in Van Meter, especially because our friends in....

Council Bluffs and Amana, Iowa were part of our Skype too.

Thank you new friends. We cannot wait to share our winter stories, songs and illustrations with all of you in December.

And thank you Lisa, Emily and Kat. You gave the students lots of ideas as they set off to write and illustrate their winter stories and songs too. We can't wait to share our global winter eBook with you too.

On November 23, we are Skyping with Mark Oblinger who arranged and produced the book. This will be another amazing experience for all of us as the students bring their work together to create and publish their very own global winter story.

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We Skyped With The Cantata Learning Songwriter & Artist Who Are The Winter Inspiration For Our Project

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The teacher librarians, classroom teachers, music and art teachers involved thought it would be awesome to learn with the songwriter and illustrator of the Cantata Learning book that is giving us our inspiration for this project. So I reached out and brought them to these three schools for a little Skype visit today.

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Pinterest Board for the "Winter Around The World" Project Filled With Ideas For Learning, Art, Writing, Reading, Creating, Playing & Collaborating

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Pinterest Board for the "Winter Around The World" Project Filled With Ideas For Learning, Art, Writing, Reading, Creating, Playing & Collaborating

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Today we started a new wall for the Winter Around the World project.

This will be the perfect place to share ideas for learning, art, writing, reading, creating, playing, cooking & collaborating within our project.

You can get to the Pinterest wall here.

If you would like to contribute to the Winter Pinterest, please let me know and I will pass your name onto Cantata Learning.

This is going to be a wonderful place to share ideas for winter activities at school and home.

But also a place to highlight the projects and work our students are sharing within their Winter Around the World project.

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Pinterest Board for the "Winter Around The World" Project Filled With Ideas For Learning, Art, Writing, Reading, Creating, Playing & Collaborating

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Today we started a new wall for the Winter Around the World project. This will be the perfect place to share ideas for learning, art, writing, reading, creating, playing, cooking & collaborating within our project. You can get to the Pinterest wall here.

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Brainstorming In Padlet & Creating Magnetic Winter Poetry As We Kick Off Our "Winter Around The World" Project

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Brainstorming In Padlet & Creating Magnetic Winter Poetry As We Kick Off Our "Winter Around The World" Project

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What a wonderful week it has been as our Winter Around The World Project has been embraced by school libraries, classrooms, communities and families in places such as Australia, Africa, Russia and the United States.

Students are creating stories, songs, poems, illustrations and personal narratives for a collaborative digital global winter story.

After their winter contributions are complete, they will be adding them to Our Winter Around The World Project Google Presentation, which will become an eBook in December when all of the work is brought together.

As they research these new topics and build on prior knowledge and personal experiences, students and teachers can benefit from the Glossary in Winter...The Coldest Season of All and other places...

such as Capstone's PebbleGo, which has a wonderful Winter section within the Science database.

You can find more resources on the Winter Symbaloo we created too.

These resources will help as students develop key understanding of the concepts and create questions they want to answer with the projects they create.

To start the project, Lynn thought it would be awesome to have our friend Kasey Bell create a winter poem template in Google Drawing for the students.

We sent some tweets back and forth, planned a Skype and were super excited when Kasey said yes!

I told Kasey how to get to the Cantata Learning book online ( which you can find here too) as we wanted to make sure the words from the glossary were included, along with words that Lynn's students brainstormed.

Next, Lynn and I bounced ideas off of each other for collecting the winter words the kids brainstormed. We decided that Padlet would be an easy, fun way to collect their winter words as this digital tool is the perfect collaborative platform for brainstorming.

Lynn assigned the Padlets in Google Classroom and...

even Periscoped the collaborative brainstorming event.....which I had so much fun watching.

Using Padlet in this way is the perfect activity as a whole class activity, in small groups or...

with individual students....as Lynn did with her students.

Here is the amazing list of winter words that her students developed.

You can view their Winter Padlet here....and please feel free to use it for winter inspiration with your students too.

Lynn shared the Padlets that her students created with Kasey.

From there, Kasey created a list of words using the glossary from Winter...The Coldest Season of All and the words from the students in Iowa.

She had around 112 words, and repeated some common words like 'a' and 'the'.

Once all of the words were in the list....

Kasey created this incredible Winter Magnetic Poetry in Google Paint and Slides. I was so excited when I saw what she had created.

Students from all over the world are going to be able to create winter poetry using this amazing creative writing tool.

Kasey has shared a link that allows anyone to make a copy of the Winter Magnetic Poetry. When their poems are complete, you can add them as an image or import into to the pages of our Winter Around The World eBook.
I cannot wait to read all of the winter poetry created that will be added to our global ebook.

If you want to create poetry out of words your students brainstorm but do not have access to technology, you could use this idea that I saw on Facebook today.

You can set up a Winter Poetry Station in your library or classroom....even in your Makerspace. Just lay out the Winter...the Coldest Season of All book with magazines, newspaper, old weeded books, paper, scissors, and glue.

Your students will be able to create winter magnetic poetry technology free. To add these to the eBook, take a photo of the poem and add it as an image to the page.

We would love to have your students participate and share their winter stories, songs, illustrations, poems and personal narratives too.

Please visit the Google Document above and add your information. And don't forget to check out all of the places we will be learning with as we celebrate winter around the world.

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Brainstorming In Padlet & Creating Magnetic Winter Poetry As We Kick Off Our "Winter Around The World" Project

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What a wonderful week it has been as our Winter Around The World Project has been embraced by school libraries, classrooms, communities and families in places such as Australia, Africa, Russia and the United States. Students are creating stories, songs, poems, illustrations and personal narratives for a collaborative digital global winter story.

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Read all of the details of the project at the Winter Around The World Project Tackk

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Read all of the details of the project at the Winter Around The World Project Tackk

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Winter Around The World Project....Please Share Your Stories, Songs & Illustrations To This Digital Global Winter Story

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Winter Around The World Project....Please Share Your Stories, Songs & Illustrations To This Digital Global Winter Story

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I am excited to announce a very special project just in time for winter and the holiday season that is almost here for a lot of us around the world.

For a little inspiration, you can visit the Cantata Learning book and song Winter....The Coldest Season Of All". They have made the eBook available for all of us in Capstone Interactive, which you can find here and the song is available for us on the Cantata Learning website.

To learn all about the Winter Around The World Project, please visit our Tackk which contains everything you need to know.

Please add your stories, songs and illustrations to the Google Slides presentation by December 1, 2015. We will have the collaborative story ready to share by December 7....just in time for winter and the holidays.

We can't wait to see and hear what your students, libraries and schools create and add to our Winter Around The World Project.

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Winter Around The World Project....Please Share Your Stories, Songs & Illustrations To This Digital Global Winter Story

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I am excited to announce a very special project just in time for winter and the holiday season that is almost here for a lot of us around the world. For a little inspiration, you can visit the Cantata Learning book and song Winter....The Coldest Season Of All".