Global Awareness Project in 2nd Grade

Grade: 2
Teachers: Laura Wetmore and Cathy Wolinsky
Subjects: Reading, Writing, Social Studies
Project Name: FlatConnections - Building Bridges to Tomorrow in Grades K-2
Resources: FlatConnections Project

Once again we have a classroom participating in a global project communicating and collaborating with students across the U.S. and in some international settings. This year Laura Wetmore is participating with her class and they are posting to the project wiki. All classrooms are posting a multimedia greeting (called a "handshake") and a View from Our Window project. The project schools are divided into three working groups to collaborate on a topic, this year the topics will be Sharing Stories and Celebrations. Teachers are communicating via. email as well as a project "ning" and students are using Google Earth to "travel" to the various locations. This is an example of a project that meets the new Global Awareness theme of the updated Social Studies Framework.

This is a map of the schools in the project.

Blogging Around the World 12/12/12

Grade: Third Grade

Teacher: Nicole Colfer

Subject: Student Blogging Day

Project Description:

Starting from an invitation by a teacher in Louisiana student bloggers from all over the world have joined together to list 12 of their FAVORITE things on 12.12.12! Also, it's 12:12pm Eastern Standard Time when we started this blog post! Here are our favorite things:

1. Favorite Video Games: Sky Landers, Super Mario Brothers, Up, Pac-Man, Angry Birds, FIFIA Cup 13, Derby, Indiana Jones 2, Star Wars, Just Dance Kids 2, Red Redemption, Lord of the Rings, Sponge Bob, Earth Movers.

2. Favorite Foods: sushi, chicken, shish kabob, chinese, chili,calzones, pancakes, waffles, plums, mahi-mahi, pizza, lobster, meatball soup, hot dogs, candy, raspberry, cheeseburgers

3. Favorite Places to Visit: Martha's Vineyard, New York, England, Sugarloaf, Canelli's, Florida, Shawnee Peak, Yarmouth Elementary School, Vermont, Boston, Washington, Monkey-See-Monkey-Do, Lego Land, Disney World, Italy, Crayola Factory, Alabama.

4. Best School Activities: Math, Lunch, Library, Music, Computer Lab, Gym, Recess, Writing, Reading, Art, Science.

5. Favorite Books: Mustard, Wings of Fire, Zoo Break, Because of Winn-Dixie, Socks, Captain Underpants, The Earth Dragon Awakes, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Stella Bats, Baily School Kids series, Super Diaper Baby, Harry Potter, Warrior series, Matilda, Jack and Annie, Mallory, Goosebumps, Bad Kitty series.

6. Favorite Things: kittens, cats, dogs, family, video games, sports, stuffed dog and animals, Crossfit Beacon, hockey, making comic books, basketball, making snowflakes, blankie, rocks, swimming, biking, soccer.

7. Favorite Movies: Because of Winn Dixie, Star Wars, Finding Nemo, Top Gun, Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, WillyWonka and the Chocolate Factory, Ralph S. Mouse, Indiana Jones, The Princess Bride, Avengers, Wreck It Ralph, Animal Planet.

8. Favorite Heroes: Underdog, Percy Jackson, Batman, HonSolo, Spiderman, Kit Fisto, Captain Underpants, Luke Skywalker, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Black Widow.

9. Favorite Villains: Lord Voldamort, Joker, Hacker, Wicked, Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Dr. Octopus, Goo-Man, Lizard Man, Boba Fett, the Penguin, Zurg, Dirty Bubble.

10. What to do with $12, 000,000?:  shopping spree, toys, motorcycle, buy a castle, snowmobile, limo with a hot tub in it, Ferri, iPad and iPhone, give it to charity, food, anything technology, buy one of everything, put it in the bank to get interest.

11. Favorite Christmas Present: ipod touch, iphone 5, ipad mini, littlest pet shops, high heel boots, keyboard, dirt bike, legos, candy maker, how to build a tree house book, DS 3, violin, gaming chair, Wii, Macbook Pro Laptop, play mobile set, Butterscotch the horse, and a pony.

12. We wish everyone a very Happy Holiday!!!!!  

(See the post and comments at: http://mrscolfersclass.blogspot.com/2012/12/blogging-around-world-on-121212.html)

Mrs. Colfer's Crew

Educational Passages Miniboat Project

Grade: 4 Communications & Math Lab Groups

Teachers: Molly Smith & Cathy Wolinsky

Subject: All

Project Name: Educational Passages

Resources: Educational Passages Endeavor Wiki

A group of 4th graders who are in the Communications and Math Lab groups with Molly Smith (Talents grades 3-8) have taken on the task of following one of five drifting miniboats that were launched this spring. The boat was launched Saturday, May 12 by the crew of the State of Maine (Maine Maritime). The kids are in contact with the captain and they are working on latitude, longitude, rate of speed and some of the other concepts of navigation.

Based on a workshop session at a conference on Science and Literacy held at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute a few months ago we decided to look for a way for our students to participate in a "miniboat expedition". For more about this project, see the website and articles below:

• http://www.educationalpassages.com
• http://bangordailynews.com/2011/04/15/news/hancock/students-to-launch-tiny-sailboats-from-mma-ship/?ref=relatedBox
• http://bangordailynews.com/2010/07/26/news/miniature-boat-from-maine-completes-extraordinary-journey/?ref=relatedBox
• http://www.pointseast.com/template.shtml?id=EkllZkuEAyqFSjcWAp&style=story

This project costs about $1500 a boat, but the volunteers who run it (Dick Baldwin, sailor; Lyman-Morse Boats; Maine Maritime Academy; Midcoast School of Technology, etc.) do all the work for free and the cost to our school is $350 for the GPS unit that travels on the boat and a monthly fee to monitor it. There will be opportunities at YES and HMS for that small group of students to share the project with others as it connects to curricula, we bring in guest speakers, etc.

The GPS unit on our boat connects to a company that will show the track of the boats in the project (at http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_ep_2012_1.html). We don't know how many months to expect the boat to be en route, one boat arrived in Ireland after 5 months, another one took a year to travel from Puerto Rico to Portugal. The hope is that if a boat makes it to Europe the students can connect with the school that retrieves the boat.

As of May 30th the miniboats have been moved by hurricane winds are are all beached on the Carolina coasts. Today there was an article in the Hatteras newspaper about the people who found the Yarmouth boat on the beach and the next steps for getting it back out onto the ocean.

http://islandfreepress.org/2012Archives/05.29.2012-MaineStudentsSailboatIsLostAndThenFoundOnHatteras.html

Update: October 8, 2012 from the project Newsletter:

5 Maine Maritime Launches

The “State of Maine” training ship launched 5 mini-boats approximately 250 miles north of the Bahamas on May 11^th.  Within 10 days these boats got “battered” off the Carolinas by tropical storms Alberto and Beryll which blew all 5 boats across the Gulf Stream and on to the Carolina beaches.  A charter fishing boat captain told us in his 46 years he had never seen the seas so rough.  One of our boats was found by surfers on Cape Hatteras, two ended up on uninhabited islands and another went ashore on Myrtle Beach.  The 5^th boat stopped reporting several miles off the beach and probably founded coming ashore.  Four of the five boats were recovered undamaged with their rigs intact attesting to their solid construction and their ability to transit our world’s oceans.

        

Two boats were taken to Charleston, South Carolina and put back aboard the “State of Maine” to be re-launched off Cape Hatteras, another boat was re-launched by surfers, and the 4^th boat was released by the School of Coastal Studies on Cape Hatteras.  These 4 boats traveled up our east coast to Newfoundland where 2 made landfall and are currently being repaired and readied for re-launching in early October and the other 2 appear to be on their way to Europe.  All these boats can be monitored at http://www.ne fsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_ep_2012_1.html.

iPad Pilot in YES Classrooms

Grades: 3 & 4

Teachers: Rosie Lenehan, Nicole Colfer & Kate Parkin

Subject: All

Project Name: iPad Pilot

It seems like every day there are conversations buzzing about how we can support learning with the single iPads that are in classrooms at YES. The teachers whose classrooms received the YEF grant iPads are using them connected to the projector for whole class instruction, for individual student use and as a center for a small groups of students. Additional teachers are using iPads that are their own.

• One class recorded the field trip to the State House in Augusta by creating aVoicethread using the mobile app. The camera on the iPad made taking pictures easy and then students added narration with audio or video clips to describe what they had learned. The kids seemed to enjoy how easy it was to build the slideshow and the iPad made it possible to do everything on one device. 

• Students are using the ShowMe app to write math procedures and record their descriptions of what they are doing or teachers are creating blog videos for explaining an algorithm.

• Dragon Dictation is helping some students with writing as they can speak into the iPad microphone and the app turns their voice into text. This text can be emailed to the teacher who can help the student continue the document.

Some other thoughts for exploration are spelling apps, voice recording of reading fluency, math practice and TumbleBooks online. Also, we added an "eprint" color laser printer this week in the YES Lab for printing directly from the iPads.

There is excitement in the air as we explore ways to use this "touch" device in ways that supplement and expand the technology access we offer to students at YES.

(cross posted at http://ipadsyes.blogspot.com/)