Milestone Six: Sharing our Public Product
Book/Website Launch and Family Celebration
At this Milestone…
Students prepare to present their new ebook/Website by practicing their presentation. Then they celebrate all their hard work by holding a (Most likely) Book/Website Launch Party with their families.
Key Question: How can we share our work with our new friends and family members in order to create our classroom community?
Formative Assessment at this Milestone: Individual or team presentation of personal book pages and sharing one part of the learning process.
Suggested Resources at this Milestone:
Days One and Two: Practicing for Our Presentation
Introduce the elements of a strong presentation by first sharing the criteria for the adapted PBLWorks Presentation Rubric
Children rehearse their presentation in person, receiving teacher and/or peer feedback. If online, children can use their online platform to rehearse/read over and record themselves practicing the personal pages they will share. If there is time, they might record their part on Flipgrid and give and receive feedback.
If your students seem nervous about presenting, think of ways to scaffold and support, or make it optional. There are plenty of ways for them to share their learning outside of public speaking. Given this is very early in the year, and children may be new to online learning, it may be challenging. Talk to your students and brainstorm other ways they might share their work with their families.
Day Three: Book/Website Launch and Family Celebration
Children present their ebook or website during a family celebration and Launch Party! If the public product is a website, consider sharing it with school leadership so they may be able to link it to the school website. You can also invite them to the Book Launch. If you had any visiting authors, it would be special for them to attend as well.
Family “breakfast” and Book Launch party over Zoom. Families can bring their own coffee/breakfast foods and eat together.
You can design the presentation to best meet your students’ needs. Each student can read their part of the book to their families, they can share one page, or talk about the process. It is often nice to share the learning process, and for young children at the beginning of the year, you will most likely need to scaffold this. You could create a quick slide presentation of each milestone and ask children to share what they remember doing or learning. Or you could make a video of their process and share that.
If you are holding a small, in-person celebration, you might have students share to small groups of families.
At the end of the celebration, ask children to reflect on their work. How did it feel to share all they did? Was it fun? Were they nervous? How might they do things differently next time? Give space for children to acknowledge their accomplishments and celebrate together.