The Global Monster Project

The Global Monster Project is a website that connects classrooms across the world to create a collaborative, cross curricular event.  It's inventor, Terry Smith has been organizing and orchestrating the project annually, for over 10 years.  The project works well because teachers can make it as simple or complex as they want, though participants should be warned that even the simple end of the scale involves finding a space in your classroom to house an 8 foot creature. 

My students' monster

Terry has dreamed up a project that even in its basic form touches on several curricular outcomes in several subject areas.  Once I signed up for the project and picked the body part we, as a class, were going to describe, we brainstormed a description of the appendage (English Language Arts - descriptive writing).  Each of the 42 other participants in the 2011 project had their own body parts or accessories to describe.  All 42 descriptions were posted and my students chose which body part they wanted to work on.  In small groups and using the descriptors given students had to created their body parts working both with in their own group, and with groups with adjoining parts (Social Studies - working in a group, respecting all group members opinions and more) (Science - the design process).  This included measuring (Math - measurement), cutting, and decorating their own parts using materials brought from home and shared.  Once we were done our monster, we uploaded a photo and at a later date all students vote on their favorite monster from the other classroom creations.  Here was this year's winner.

We could have stopped our participation at making our own monster and voting on the others, but the beauty of Terry's Global Monster Project is becomes not website you go visit once or a project that stops once the students have voted, it is the jumping off point for so much more.   Adding your class twitter account, blog, class e-mail and/or Skype account to the site is encouraged and teachers make use of it.  Through this project my students visited other classroom blogs, getting a sense of how other classes blog, making comments on what they liked.  They Skyped with two other classrooms learning while learning about asking good questions and comparing our city and school day to theirs.  Finally our class gained a penpal class in England who we continue to keep in contact with.  We will be sending our English penpals a care package later this year, including items based on what we learn about symbols of Canada.