The Pigeon Meets Flat Matt

Once you get the PBL train rolling, it's hard to stop and sometimes... projects collide! My class has been working on the Pigeon Project since earlier this spring and they are doing a great job of planning, writing, illustrating and publishing their own books. When we were invited to join the "Adventures of Matthew and Jim" project, we enthusiastically accepted. Eventually the two projects collided and The Pigeon met Flat Matt. Here's the details:

Matt, also known as "Flat Matt", was sent to us by a 1st Class (six and seven year olds) at Glor na Mara Primary School who connected with our class on Twitter. You can follow them @blognamara When Flat Matt joined our classroom last month, we decided that we'd like to make a very special pigeon book for Matt's class back in Tramore, Ireland. The book was a shared writing project with all 15 of my Grade 2 students contributing to the writing and illustrating. After days of enthusiastic book-making, the final product was shared via blogging and social media so our new Irish friends could see the story!

I like how the two projects became one for a period of time in our classroom. The task provided authentic audience since we knew another class would be reading our book, which led to much enthusiasm and urgency. The "double project" also gave us a focus for our writing and art. Flat Matt is now on his way to another classroom, but he sure inspired a lot of learning in our classroom while he was here!