Journals
Give your children a blank journal and allow them to write about their feelings and thoughts throughout your Global Collaboration. I suggest this is not a graded assignment but one that creates opportunities for the children to express what they are learning about their new friends in another country as well as how they feel about this adventure. You could respond to their writing with your own thoughts or you can just allow it to be a personal journal for the children. Either way, it encourages writing for expression which all of our children need to learn to do better.
My Favorite Things
Another fun idea is to have the children bring in two or three favorite items from home to share. We took pictures of the children with their items, and they wrote about why these particular items were so special to them. You could create a Photo Story of your children with their favorite things giving them to chance to tell about them on the Photo Story, or you can create a Power Point about their items including their picture and their writing. Either way, it is fun for the children in both classes to see what is special to each other and gives them another opportunity to get to know each other better.
Family Memories
Another writing opportunity your children could share with each other is to write about a special family memory or someone in their family that means a lot to them. This, once again, gives the children a chance to express themselves in writing and you can use it as a teaching tool, while at the same time it allows the Global Buddies another opportunity to get to know each other.
Global Buddies is designed to connect children from different countries together in order to build friendships, promote better cultural awareness and appreciation, and increase the potential of opening the doors of the world to our 21st century students .
