Monster Exchange - Fourth Grade District-Wide Project

Encouraging students to develop their reading and writing skills while integrating Internet technology into the curriculum remains a priority in our fourth grade classrooms. Monster Exchange is an Internet-based project designed to do just that. The fourth grade students in Oakland have their creative juices flowing as they draw and write descriptions of monsters. Once the writing process has reached the publishing stage, the monster descriptions will be posted on monsterexchange.org. The students are excited to be partnered with other fourth grade students within the district.

When the pieces have been exchanged, the students in all of the classes are challenged to use reading comprehension skills to read the descriptions and translate them into a monster picture. The true challenge involves creating a redrawn picture as close to the original picture as possible without looking at the original and using only the written description of the monster. The students worked hard to make the description of their monster as detailed as possible. Therefore, we are sure our Oakland fourth graders are up to the challenge!

A key component to our success with this activity is Mrs. Kathy Capela. She has worked diligently with all the fourth grade classes across the district to make this a fun and positive learning experience.

Please visit Monster Exchange to learn more about our project, and look for our very own Oakland Fourth Grade students’ descriptions and pictures in the gallery.