Across the Great Divide
Last week, the second graders at my school put on a Fence Sale (final project for a math/science unit). During the time that Mrs. Workman's class was presenting, I had my 8 kinders. (See Choice post)
I really wanted to go and participate, but was worried I've have to cancel my kinder group to go. On the contrary, though, because Mrs. Workman was THRILLED to have some students come along! YAY!
So, at 8:00, I packed up my "Elite 8" and reminded them of what we were going to do and explained to them that they could use their ipads to take pictures of anything they thought was worth showing their friends in their classrooms. (Since not all students were able to attend.)
When we got there, Mrs. Workman handed us a bandana, some fake money (darn it!) and a card with our script on it. We were to go around to each of the tables and have the fence building companies tally up the cost of our fence based on the information on our script. At each station, I let a student be the farmer...they had a blast! At the end, we took a vote and, shocker, it was a tie! So, Mrs. Workman gave us MORE money (I wish!) to buy both fences. My kinders were super bummed at the end when they couldn't ACTUALLY take home a fence and when we had to leave Mrs. Workman's room.
The best parts of this project, in my opinion, are as follows:
*Students in second grade worked together to create a unique fence, branding and jingles.
*2nd Graders were required to compute perimeter and they had FUN doing it.
*Kindergartners got to see what they might be able to do in the future.
*Kinders were able to document what they thought was most important to show their friends and, let me tell you, they took A LOT of photos.
*Mrs. Workman wasn't afraid of a bunch of kinders "messing" anything up.
*Older kids got to show off to younger kids...younger kids had stars in their eyes.
The list really could go on and on...
How can you make something like this happen in YOUR school?
