Every May we celebrate Michigan Week. In the past we would talk about fun state facts, color the state symbols, and add cities and names of the lakes to a map. It was a fun week, but I was never sure how much of what we learned stayed with them.

This year I found a request for a Michigan School in the http://50statesproject.wikispaces.com/ I volunteered my second graders right away – even though I didn’t know what was expected and nor had I ever Skpye chatted with another school before.
We prepared at least 10 facts about our state and the children practiced reading them. We did a practice Skype with the school in Alabama the day before to make sure the connection worked (it did!) The following day we went to the computer lab (we have new iMacs and iSight cameras) and gathered around the camera/computer. The children did a great job reading their facts and listening to the Alabama school tell us their facts. I did learn a few things I will do differently the next time (and we will do it again!) We used an external iSight camera instead of the one on the iMac and we ended up a bit sideways. I also would have the children arranged differently. But all in all it was a great experience. Here is the link to our Skype chat. (The volume on our end is louder than theirs. Also the next time I will talk less!)


As it was Michigan week, and I had been given a Video/Green Screen assignment from my PLC group, I decided we would take our facts and illustrate them in front of the camera using the green screen (I needed at least 4 of the screens hanging behind the kids and on the ground so they could appear to be walking on the bridge.) We have done many green screen videos before so the kids were thrilled to do it. Each group would stand with their fact and we would decide the best way to show it. They pointed to the green screen imagining a map behind them, picked cherries from the green wall, swam with brook trout, and walked across the bridge. As it took a few takes to film each scene (and the rest of the class was quietly reading around the room at the time) we heard each fact repeated many times. The value of this is that the children can recite most of the facts from the video with little prompting. We have watched the video over and over and they repeat the lines along with the speakers. Yesterday we were playing a game, and the question asked if Lake Erie was one of the Great Lakes. We all laughed and repeated the lines from the video – naming all of the great lakes! ( We do know how to pronounce Ontario – even though the gals in the video kept saying Ontari-er!)

The movie was a great creative exercise. The children had many great ideas and their ideas made the video better. We covered a bookshelf in green screen and David climbed on that as if he were climbing a tree (his idea!) It is an experience I will repeat. This video will be shown to future classes as an introduction to Michigan Week. We already showed the video at our All School Student Film Festival. Video will be used in other content areas as well. I am already jotting down ideas for next year.