Instead of Read Across America Day the international school that I work at (in Venezuela) calls it Read Across CIC. Last week my third grade class met the eighth graders who we would be working with, we reviewed the book that we had read earlier in the year (Horton Hears a Who), and the eighth graders formed teams with my third graders to make a plan to create the loudest musical “instrument” for the big day. Yesterday we brought in the recycled materials, met up with our groups, and began building our music instruments.

My class read the book aloud, listened to it at a listening station, and students had the opportunity to hear it again at home over the weekend on Youtube.  The eighth graders were supposed to at least listen to the book. Everyone knew that the goal for our Read Across CIC period was to help the Whos make more noise so the other animals could hear them.

They had so much fun working in these mixed age groups and just building the instruments. Then they were finally given the chance to test out which team created the loudest instrument. THEY HAD A BLAST!

I really wish I could post pictures here of their smiling faces but my school doesn’t allow pics of students on the web.

Instead I will have to leave you with a picture of the instruments my student teams created:

Some of the musical “instruments” created by my class to celebrate Read Across CIC (aka Read Across America)