Guest Blog Post: The Global Read Aloud and The Fourteenth Goldfish by Lisa Robles

5/4/2015

So last summer, I was looking at posts on bloglovin’, when I came upon The Global Read Aloud. It’s an amazing project hosted by Pernille Ripp. It’s a project where students collaborate globally on a specific read aloud.

There are different books you can choose from but I chose The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer Holm. It was first published in 2014 and immediately made it onto blogs and even the Global Read Aloud. It's about Ellie. Her parents are divorced but cordial and her biggest concern is starting middle school. Then one day, her mother brings home a boy. He's a moody teenager...but something about him is very familiar to Ellie. He's a lot like her crazy grandpa/scientist. Could it be?

I really wanted to incorporate the global collaboration aspect into our work. We were already using Edmodo as a class and Pernille uses it as a platform for her work too. A Fourteenth Goldfish group was created and was integral to my teaching. So many teachers went online and were working together to get our classes to Skype about the ideas in the book. It was an amazing PLN (Professional Leaning Network).

Another platform we used was Kidblog. Kidblog is a way to create safe, simple blogs for your students. I would give the kids two questions to choose from as we read different chapters and blog about them. You can create tags to organize the blog posts and a blogroll of classrooms you’re collaborating with. That makes it super easy for kids to visit other blogs and leave comments. The kids love getting comments from others. You can see my kids’ work here.

I also made sure to integrate internet resources such as youtube videos. The main premise of the book is aging and the idea of the fountain of youth. I used the following true video about the immortal jellyfish to spark interest and discussion.

Some themes to consider while reading this book: science ethics, science, divorce, friendship, aging, family, intergenerational relationships, growth mindset, and stereotypes.

I loved this book so much, I created a close reading guide for it. I want to be able to use this text with all my future classes. You can find it at my TPT store.

Consider joining The Global Read Aloud this year. We will be reading Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt!

About the Author

My name is Lisa Robles. I teach fourth grade in Huntington Park, CA.. I’ve been teaching for 25 years. I’ve taught grades 1-5. I have a Masters in Curriculum and Development and I am National Board Certified in Literacy: Reading, Language Arts.