Ms. Barrett’s second grade class at Great Neck Road Elementary School recently participated in a monster match with first graders at Island Trees School District, sponsored by BOCES.

Ms. Barrett’s class was paired with the other class with the goal of designing and building a monster, sharing directions with the partner class and building the partner class’s monster. Students worked together in small groups to design and build different parts of the monster. They wrote the list of materials and directions for the part they built and put the monster together. They switched directions with the partner class and did their best to follow each other’s directions.

The two classes set up a videoconference on Google Meet to introduce themselves. The students spoke about their classes and asked questions. They showed each other the monsters they built and the original monsters. The students were excited to see how well they did when following the directions to build the monsters. They compared and contrasted the monsters and talked about what was challenging.