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Internet
Projects
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 Newsletter
Exchange
We exchange monthly e-mail newsletters with
classes of children from different states and countries.
Each newsletter covers a specific topic, such as a typical
day at school, our favorite sports and games, books and
authors we like, and our summer plans. This project
helps us practice map skills, work on letter writing,
discover how children are alike and different, use the
computer and e-mail to communicate, and make new friends
throughout the world. We will exchange news from October to
May.
Our partner schools for this school year are second grade
classes from:
 St.
Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan
Capistrano, California, USA
Blanchard
Elementary School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri,
USA
Karsta
Skola in Karsta, Sweden
East
Chilliwack Elementary School in Chilliwack, British
Columbia, Canada
Minisink
Valley Elementary School in Slate Hill, New York,
USA
Clarendon
Elementary School in Clarenden, Texas, USA
Presentation
Primary School in Terenure, Dublin, Ireland
Liberty
School in Great Meadows, New Jersey, USA
Ringwood
North Primary School in Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia
Fall
Internet Poetry Project
We joined an writing project called
Fall
Internet Poetry Project in September. The
challenge of the project was to create a class acrostic poem
which fit the topic of fall. brainstormed ideas and chose
the topic of Halloween. We listed as many ideas about
Halloween as we could then worked together to combine them
into an acrostic poem called HALLOWEEN.
We have also written and illustrated individual
fall poems which are posted here on the 2K web
page.
Traveling
Buddy
We hosted a Traveling Buddy from the San Diego
Zoo who visited our classroom in October. A Traveling Buddy
is a stuffed animal which travels from classroom to
classroom around the world and helps children learn about
the real animal as well as its home school and the schools
which it visits.
Our Traveling Buddy was a snow leopard from the San
Diego Zoo. While Sammy visited Richards and Whitefish Bay,
he was living the life of a 2K second grader - going to
school, going home, playing with friends, using the
computer, and having fun! 2K made a web page called
Sammy
the Snow Leopard's Visit.
The project is sponsored by Mrs. Switzer's class at
Del
Mar Heights Elementary School in Del Mar,
California. We will be following Sammy's travels through the
web
page created by students from Del Mar and by
checking the San
Diego Zoo web site.
Election
2000
We joined an Internet election project designed
for Grades 1-3 students called Election
2000. Instead of voting for President, students
voted for their favorite story character - Ms. Frizzle or
Arthur. The project has over 50 schools participating and
focuses on developing students' concepts of the elction
process and how leaders are selected in the United States.
Our class was divided into two parties - the Ms.
Frizzle Party and the Arthur party. Each party had
committees which worked on election materials - buttons,
bookmarks, sashes, hats, speeches, and other projects. We
voted for our favorite story character on November 7 -
Arthur won - and sent our one electoral vote to the project
coordinator.
On November 13, 2000 we found out that Arthur won the
election. With votes from the 3,316 students participating
and 33 schools reporting: 20 electoral votes were cast for
Arthur, 12 for Ms. Frizzle, and 1 for George Bush.
Celebrations
Slide Show
We created a
Celebrations
Slide Show combining our December Newsletter
topic - Our Holidays and Celebrations - with Kid Pix
slides which illustrate our favorite family celebrations. We
hope you enjoy the wide variety of celebrations we enjoy
with our families.
Scholastic.com
We use Scholastic.com
for different academic online activities. Each day we try to
solve rhyming word puzzles as a spelling activity from
"Annie's Rhyme Time". We will also use sites to practice
reading and math skills. We will visit with famous
children's authors online as the year goes on.
National
Pet Census
We worked on a math, social studies, and language
arts Internet project called the National
Pet Census. Students of all ages are collecting
information on which pets are most common in the United
States . They will also discover whether people in different
parts of the country have the same pets or different kinds
of pets. 2K collected data from all Richards Grades 1-5
classmates and sent our information to the project web site.
We were interested in finding out what kinds of pets our
classmates here at Richards have and if those will be the
same pets that students from other schools own as
well.
What is the most common pet owned by students at
Richards? Find out in the Pet
Census data collected right here at Richards
School! Students also wrote wonderful stories
about their own pets or pets they would like to have.
World
Weather Watch
In February and March we tracked our daily weather
here in Whitefish Bay as we worked with the World
Weather Watch Project. We collected the following
data each Wednesday: outside temperature at 12 noon, the
high and low temperatures for the day, sky conditions,
amount of precipitation, and sunrise and sunset. On
Thursdays we sent in our information to the project data
collection site then each Monday we received data from all
the other participating classes so we could compare our
weather to theirs.
We also had individual weather partners - a class of second
graders from Pukalani Elementary School in Maui, Hawaii. We
exchanged our weather data as well other weather information
with them via email letters each week as well. Because we
collected weather data for several weeks, we were able to
see patterns and regional differences in the weather as
winter changed to spring around the world. There was a big
difference between the reports from Hawaii and
Wisconsin!
Flat
Stanley Exchange
We have partnered with Mrs.
Morton's class at Murphy Ranch School in
Whittier, California for a Flat
Stanley exchange. Flat Stanley is the character
in a book of the same title who gets flattened by a bulletin
board. Mrs. Morton's students sent us
Flat Alex
(created by a student named Alex) via email so
he could visit 2K and have some adventures. Read about his
adventures here at Richards School in our virtual book
Flat
Alex!
Our Flat Alex project was featured in the Netlife section of
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal on March 16, 2001. Read
Jackie
Loohauis's column and learn more about our now
famous project!
Hand
Drawn Tour of the
Village
2K has finished a social studies and technology
project - a hand drawn Tour
of the Village of Whitefish Bay where Richards
Elementary School is located. Students brainstormed a list
of landmarks and points of interest in the Village then
chose one to research. Research included interviews, library
work, and visiting the landmark or point of interest.
Students used their research notes to write reports about
their topics, then worked with pencils, crayons, colored
pencils, and markers to create drawings to match their
reports. Take our Tour!
2K's
Favorite Recipes
Cookbook 
2K has been working on an extension activity for
an Everyday Math Home Link which focused on fractions and
measurement - a cookbook of students' favorite recipes.
Parents worked with students to type or write a favorite
recipe then Ms. Kreul typed the recipes on a web page
template. Next students used KidPix Deluxe to create
original illustrations to match their recipes. The cookbook
was posted on our class web page as well as printed so each
of us could receive a hard copy to take home. We also shared
copies of our recipe book with all the the teachers and
staff who work with 2K students here at Richards.
Mmmm....try some of our 2K
Favorite Recipes!
Miss
Rumphius
Award
The 2K Web Page has been honored with the
Miss
Rumphius Award by the Reading Teacher listserve,
a group of K-12 teachers affiliated with the International
Reading Association. The Award is given to
teachers whose web sites develop and share exceptional
Internet resources for literacy and learning.
Watch
Our New Plants Grow!
2K has been working on a new FOSS science unit
called"New Plants". We learned that new plants could grow
from seeds, from cuttings, from bulbs, and from parts of
grown plants. Read our science log reports for Garlic,
Lawns,
Beans,
Pothos,
and Brassica
to find out just how it worked!
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Technology
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So far this year in second grade, we have created
personal stationery using Print Shop Deluxe. We have written
poems about fall and are used KidPix Deluxe to type and
illustrate our poems. Our poems were posted on our class
poetry page when we finished them. When Sammy the Siberian
Snow Leopard visited our classroom, our teacher took photos
of him with the digital camera then we used AppleWorks to
write about the adventures he had in 2K. The photos and our
text were combined to make the Sammy Visits web page which
is also posted on our web page. Our Family Celebrations page
tells about the special times we enjoy with our families.
We have used both the regular Mac Lab and the new iMac
Lab . We have learned how to save our files to the network,
how to choose text fonts and sizes to fit the project, how
to use and manipulate graphics and drawing/painting tools,
how to print documents, and other procedures that we can use
in both of the labs. We have learned to use Netscape and the
Weather
Underground web site to track weather for three
weeks in a city of our choice then compared that weather to
the weather here in Whitefish Bay, WI. We learned how to use
the digital camera and scanner as we worked on various
integrated curriculum projects, such as the Tour of the
Village and Flat Alex. Another cool project this year was
writing and illustrating mini-books using Kids Works
Deluxe.
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