ACTIVITIES These 3 fifth grade students, Ellie Geneovese, Jared Stone and Megan Lindemann chose a topic of their choice to research using a hotlist made up by Ms. Lyman. Their final project was to create a Powerpoint presentation using the information they found. The Genet Library has been very busy the first four months of school. In flex classes, working with the gifted and talented students in grades k-3, we have finished the following projects: Liam and Nathaniel are two third graders working on mosaics as a full class flex lesson. The third graders have finished studying Italy and mosaics are a very important art form in the history of the country.
The Kindergarten flex group just finished up a unit on illustrators who use borders in their pictures. The Kindergartner's chose poems to illustrate a border around.
Beginning in September all of the Genet fifth graders participated in a collaborative assignment to design a new Mt Rushmore and to write an essay as to why the 4 presidents deserved to be on the monument. Each class had 6 groups of 4-5 students working together researching and writing information about their four favorite presidents during their library classes with Ms. Lyman. One person in each group was chosen to write the final essay from everyone’s notes and one person was chosen to design the monument on an 8” X 11” piece of paper. This assignment was inspired by a national contest sponsored by Perma-Bound Books, a company the library uses to purchase books. They chose to recognize author, Judith St. George and her books on presidents. All finished projects were submitted to Perma-Bound for judging just before Christmas. Ms. Lyman is proud to announce that Perma-Bound Books awarded 3rd prize to one of our 5th grade groups here at Genet! Caley Grasso was the artist and she “thought outside the box” when she designed the new Mt. Rushmore out of papier-mache. The base was on the required 8” x11” guideline but she chose to make her design 3-dimensional. It impressed the judges enough to award our school third prize. Olivia Verdile wrote the essay from her and Caley’s presidential notes as well as notes from Brandon Valoze and Nickole Prestipino. Winning third prize in a national contest is such an honor. The class will receive a set of Judith St. George’s autographed books. The winning essay and model along with the first and second prize winners can be seen at Perma Bound’s website: www.perma-bound-com. Click on Contests along the left side of the home page.
Eric Carle author study complete with a 12-month calendar given to the parents as a gift. (Kindergarten)
Animal research was completed with a first grade group and they also learned that the Christmas tree came from Germany. They made tree magnets with odd buttons as a project.
Animal research was completed with the second grade group and their completed projects with life-size or done in clay form. They are currently working on the 5 senses, studying a different sense each week until completed.
Third grade flex has done many different activities in the whole class or in a small group. We have done Duarma dolls when studying Japan, created postcards for other countries, studied author Allan Say and wrote letters to him. Completing the Japan unit, a small group of girls read, wrote and illustrated original Haiku poems. We are learning about Italy now and the La Befana story for the holiday. Also a small group of third grade girls are reading Love That Dog by Creech and will be completing a unit on poetry.
There are nine students in the a fourth grade cooking club and this fall we researched the foods of the Native Americans in the Northeastern U.S. They baked three different items, sold them during lunch before Thanksgiving and made just over $50.00 which they donated to Nassau Resource Ctr. Currently they are baking three batches of cookies and Peppermint Bark to sell before the holdiay break. The money made will be donated again to a favorite charity. Fifth grade gifted and talented students researched endangered animals and either did a Powerpoint presentation or a life-sized version of their animal. We had a huge blue whale hanging in the hall outside the library for a while.
A huge Flat Stanley project is under way in our second grade scheduled classes. Many of the children have received responses from all over the country and a few from overseas.
As the year unfolds there will be more projects to talk about. Fifth grade students worked very hard in a cooperative learning activity. We entered a contest where they had to design a new Mt. Rushmore. Permabound books is sponsoring the contest. The groups researched presidents and illustrated their renditions of the new monument. |
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SCHOOLS |
| COLUMBIA H.S. |
| GOFF M.S. |
| BELL TOP E.S. |
| GENET E.S. |
| GREEN MEADOW E.S. |
| DP SUTHERLAND E.S. |
| RED MILL E.S. |