Voices From Outer Space

We got to do the neatest thing this morning. A little background....

Every morning after breakfast we do Morning Meeting (here is my Morning Meeting routine posted on Adapted Learning). That usually takes 10-15 minutes depending upon what everyone has to say and how cooperative everyone is being. Which leaves us with 10 minutes or so before we start Rotations. During this time I usually put the CNN Student News on the Smartboard for the kids to watch while the grownups organize Rotations, finish bathroom trips and breakfast clean up, etc. Today there was a banner at the top of the Student News page indicating that President Obama was getting ready to speak to the astronauts on the International Space Station. We've just finished a mini unit on the Solar System and Space program so I clicked on the link out of curiosity. Nothing much going on so we went back to the Student News. I left the window open, however, and about 2 minutes later we heard NASA connecting with the Space Station. We switched back and got to watch a very interesting exchange between the President and a group of school children and the members of the Space Station team (listen here if you want). ALL of the kids were enthralled. Very cool. Technology is AMAZING!