Students in the Write

What would you do if you were elected president? How would you help to make the world a better place? Over the past few months, the children have been learning about different countries, states, and communities as well as environmental factors in social studies. They learned that some countries and communities have more resources to offer than others. The children in Ms. Dimmie’s 2nd grade class decided to write about the changes that they would make if they were elected president of the United States.

To hear Ms. Dimmie’s students explain their presidential platforms, click here.

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Several of Mrs. Praino’s second grade students were studying the poem “The Ride of Paul Revere” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with Mrs. Hickey. They decided to create a web-tribute to this historic poet in celebration of “Poetry Month.” The students illustrated some of the stanzas, and with Mrs. Hickey’s guidance, recorded their recitation. Then Mr. Calvert merged the illustrations with the recordings into the vodcast you see here. Click “Play” above to look and listen to this historic poem.

“Baking Corn, Dogs in the Yard, and Towering Apartments” by Group 6

Mrs. Bakala’s class has been learning about different communities in Social Studies. The distinct attributes of rural, suburban, and urban communities provide contrasting experiences for our senses and Mrs. Bakala’s students have used these differences to inspire poetry. In a collaborative effort, our students have merged their prose to illustrate these contrasts. Each recorded poem showcases several students.

Together they offer a feast for the senses; listen and enjoy them all by clicking here.

Our “Heart of Writing” writing project was just that…writing that came from our hearts. We wrote about the things that were special and important to us. We did this by going through each step of the writing process. First, we brainstormed what topics would be in our hearts and then selected one topic to write about. We made a first draft of our writing and then revised it by adding a beginning, middle, and end to our stories. We also added details to our writing because we learned details make our work more interesting to read. We then edited our stories and made sure our writing had capitals and periods where they needed to be and made sure there was at least one vowel in every word we wrote. Then we published our work by writing a final copy. Finally, we shared our work with each other and with you!

Click here to hear our first grade students read their Hearts of Writing

Fourth grade students in Mrs. Zerafa’s class have been communicating via email with “e-pals” from Willington, England. Ms. O’Brien, technology specialist, established this activity in November with the children writing letters to one another. The third and fourth graders from England then sent pictures of points of interest in their community.

Washington Irving’s fourth grade students took a walking tour of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow and photographed historic landmarks and places of interest. In the computer lab, the children researched and recorded the information to be “pod casted” to our friends across the pond. We hope they (and you) will enjoy our final product.

The eight minute full length project (11MB, please allow the project to load)

Click to view a 20 second excerpt (.5 MB)

Featured Town: Bearmont

Class Congresswoman, Claire, says, “Come to Bearmont, Your children will be amazed with all of the kinds of bears in the zoos and in the wild. (P.S. no bear attacks, good bears only)” Are you interested? Click here for information.

This project integrates social studies, reading, writing, listening, speaking, art, and technology. After studying our own community and reading about others, students began creating their own towns. They included community helpers that are important to make a community thrive: police officers, firefighters, stores, homes, and transportation to name a few. We created town maps using a program called Neighborhood Map Machine in the computer lab.

In our writing piece used for the pod casts, students honed their skills in paragraph writing. Students have been studying main idea and supporting details. Using graphic organizers, we examined our words choice so as to persuade someone to move to our town. We also included a closing sentence to sum up our thoughts. Some of our advanced writers used graphic organizers to learn when to break for a new paragraph and use transitional words and phrases to help their writing flow.

The children were very creative and had a great deal of fun while working. We hope you enjoy listening to our writing. Maybe you will find a town that is just right for you!

Click here to see and hear about our towns.