The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
~ Dr. Seuss, “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”
Ideas from Past Grants
Kids Discover
Ordinary Americans, Extraordinary Achievements: In this grant, students in grades 3-5 studied Americans who have helped to better our society. The project began when students read the book Kids Discover Suffragists then read biographies of Susan B. Anthony. From there, students saw the performance “Susan B. Anthony The Invincible” and then created a voting opportunity within the school to learn how every vote counts. Finally, each student was asked to research their own choice of a Great American, write a report and provide a visual presentation about their chosen hero.
Picturing Writing: Noting the fact that students sometimes have difficulty with conventional writing assignments, a group of 3rd and 4th grade students were offered a different type of writing experience. Using a dynamic art-and-literature based approach developed by Beth Olshansky at the University of New Hampshire, student used a crayon resist watercolor art technique to inspire their creation of fiction and nonfiction picture books.
Razzle Dazzle Rainbow Fish: In this innovative project, kindergartners read Marcus Pfister’s The Rainbow Fish then worked together to create a giant paper maché fish and read nonfiction literature to extend their knowledge of fish and their environment. Literacy, art and science!
District-wide Cookbook for Hunger: In this collaborative initiative, elementary-age students in each school helped to assemble both recipes and illustrations for a cookbook that was then marketed and sold to raise money for the Salem Mission.
Cooking the Books: What better way to study great books than though your appetite? A special education classroom at Bates Elementary used cookbooks Simple Cooking Fun and Book Cook to create foods that were based on favorite children’s books. A “field trip” to a local supermarket to buy ingredients was a highlight.
Now We’re Reading! Have you ever wished that you could translate the literacy work that students are doing at school into increased motivation to read at home? One Literacy Team, trying to ensure that all children in their early grades had fun and appropriate books to read at home, got together to create 60 take-home Reading Activity Bags which could be checked out by students at the end of each day. In each bag, they included a leveled book appropriate to students’ reading levels and a hands-on related activity that they could do with their families.
Jeff Benoit, Performer
Chariots of the Sun: A joint effort between the literacy and social studies teams at Collins Middle School, this project tied together units on Mythology and Ancient Greece. The main event, which kicked off a seven-week review of both subjects, was a performance by Jeff Benoit entitled The Myth of Phaeton and Cyclops. This one-hour show included masks, mime, poetry and audience participation and introduced students to Greek Gods, literary monsters and legendary heroes.
Books Alive! To enhance the Guided Reading curriculum at one school, teachers set up a book room where sets of 6 books were paired up with puppets/animals representing the major characters in the story. Reading groups were then able to not only read the books together but also to “bring them alive”. By introducing puppetry, teachers were able to increase kids’ creativity, reading fluency, expressiveness and confidence.
Ideas from Other Foundations
Project Tween Reads: One district’s 6th grade English/Language Arts department adapted its reading program to model a “Book Club” setting, in which students read contemporary, high-quality books and discussed them in “literature circles” (guided reading groups).
Author Study ~ Literacy Celebration: In one town, 5 authors of children’s literature were invited to spend a day at each of the district’s 5 elementary schools working with grade K-5 students during the course of a week. The week culminated with a public “Read-Aloud-a-Thon” at the local library with the authors as well as local celebrities including the superintendent, town selectmen and teachers each reading from favorite published works.
Creating Personal Stories: One district invited Author Grace Lin to work with 1st graders over the course of two years. During the first year, students were presented with an interactive role play about the publication process and shown how they could use their own everyday life as the inspiration for telling stories. After students created their own personal stories, Ms. Lin returned to help students focus on how they could turn their ideas into longer and more complex pieces of writing.
Book It! One school established an on-site Publishing Center which enabled students to bind their own works. At the end of the school year, they convened an Author’s Tea, where students could share their publications.
The Joy of Creating ~ A Poet in Residence Program: Children’s author and poet Lyn Littlefield Hoopes conducted a series of 90-minute long workshops on exploring and enhancing the creative process and poetry writing for students in grades 2-5.
The Golden Rule: This illustrated children’s book by Ilene Cooper formed the basis for a lesson in ethics. It’s a story about a boy and his grandfather discussing social and emotional issues for both adults and children. The concept of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” was used as a jumping off point for related lessons about social responsiblity, diversity and empathy. After extended classroom discussions, students had the opportunity to create their own books that illustrated how the golden rule has found a place in their own everyday lives.
And the Winner Is…! Grant funding in one town is allowing students in grades 4-6 to participate in the Massachusetts’s Children’s Book Award Program (MCBA) by making available five paperback copies of each of the 25 titles on the Master List for 2009-2010. The purchase of these multiple copies is making it possible to involve many students in this reading incentive. As part of the awards process, any 4th, 5th or 6th grader who reads at least five books from the Master List are able to vote for their favorite book. The author of the winning book will receive a plaque to commemorate the award. The MCBA program was established in an attempt to encourage children to read great books. The award is sponsored by Salem State College. For more information about this program, go to http://www.salemstate.edu/academics/schools/3698.php
Resources
For more projects in this category, go to kidsinneed.net
