Mrs. Frontera from Jard�n Mundial has participated with her previous kindergarten and preschool classes in various Internet projects. Below are some of the "old" ones, as well as some of the "new" ones. It is her belief that even younger students can succeed using technology as part of the curriculum. The Internet provides her classroom with new learning horizons. There is an infinite amount of ideas that can be developed.
The Community of Trees Project originates at New York University. Its purpose is to investigate the Internet capacity as a communication medium and exchange about an ecological art topic. Jard�n Mundial students created 3-D art projects inspired by a tree just outside of our classroom. We took pictures of it during Winter and on Arbor Day, during the Spring.
Joined through the Internet, Jard�n Mundial has participated on the decoration of paper grocery bags during two consecutive Earth Days, during the month of April. This project increases environmental awareness within the school and its surrounding community. Watch our pictures, and read about other children's efforts at the Arbor Heights School homepage.
As part of the our Hundredth Day in school, Jardin Mundial's PM group took a picture with number 100. Students colored this numeral using oil pastels. We e-mailed the first grade teachers of Prairie Vista School in Northern Indiana, USA, congratulating them for their 100th day in school.
We organize this project every year during the Fall season. It is a collaborative effort between many Preschool and Kindergarten teachers. Here is a description of the project. For reasons of space, we have removed our pictures of our 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 leaf collections from this website. This project is very popular among early childhood teachers. Read the newspaper article about it!
The Holiday spirit entered our lives last December 1996. Jard�n Mundial made small monetary contributions to Manos Unidas (Barcelona, Spain), Children's Hunger Relief Fund (California, USA), and Feed My People Children's Charity (Arizona, USA). Their URL's were located through the Net's search tools. We wrote about these donations to charity and participated on the Kindness Project, sponsored by The Family Center for Girls and Boys in Connecticut, USA.
This project provides young children from all over the world an opportunity to express themselves. Its objective is to create an awareness of other children around the globe who communicate everyday in Spanish. Through their participation, children will also get knowledge about other communities, schools, and cultural characteristics.
Spanish-speaking children from 4-7 years of age who are at an emergent literacy level were exhorted to participate. Since they do not command all the letters and/or sounds of the Spanish alphabet yet, drawings are important to their communication skills.
Jard�n Mundial categorized themes used by children in their drawings, dictated short stories, pictures of themselves, or early writing attempts (including developmental spellings), and made them available for everyone to enjoy through this website. Preschool, Kindergarten, and First Grade parents and their teachers used this project as a real audience for their children's creations.
Ni�os del Mundo project ended on June 1997. This project is featured in the book titled: How to Create Successful Internet Projects by Timothy McLain (Classroom Connect, 1997). Contact Mrs. Frontera if you have any questions regarding this project's contributions. �Nuestros ni�os son el futuro de este planeta!
One class representing each participating school sent their facts to Phil Redman in London, England. He compiled the information and made tables with March 12, 1997 details on them. Jard�n Mundial got to represent its prior home school: C. M. Bardwell Elementary. If you would like to read about our day, click here.
Jard�n Mundial collected our students' pet pictures. We sent information about their care and feeding to a project titled "Pets around the World," directed by Barbara Tomasso, en Hilton High School, New York, USA. We also participated on a monthly online magazine for 5-7 year-old children in Auckland, New Zealand and shared our drawings and pictures with our keypal friends.
In her effort to incorporate more science into the curriculum, Mrs. Frontera shared with students the fascinating life cycles of butterflies and tadpoles during the Spring of 2000. Preschool students watched with delight these two "mini-labs" and children considered them as classroom pets, to give company to our always-present plants.
Our preschoolers had fun learning about pizzas. We wanted to provide an opportunity to explore a pizza experience while at the same time learning so many concepts. This interesting topic came from the students themselves and we considered it a wonderful and practical way of applying what we learned from emergent curriculum.
To make ourselves known, back in 1997, Jard�n Mundial sent a class e-mail message to Mr. Jim Reed's Fourth Grade Class in Manitou Springs, Colorado, USA. Our message was posted on their class map and we received a custom-made postcard drawn by the fourth graders. To return their kindness, we sent them a digital postcard at the beginning of March.
Jard�n Mundial Kindergarten also registered at the Postcard Geography Project of Town Elementary in California (USA) in 1997. Mrs. Frontera taught her students the proper addressing and postcard writing protocols. To read about what we learned, please email us.
During the Spring of 2000, Jard�n Mundial teacher created the Animal Postcards Collection Project. We had a blast receiving postcards from all over, including Canada and New Zealand.
As part of our daily routine Jard�n Mundial enjoys singing songs, reciting rhymes, and doing fingerplays in both Spanish and English. We taped an audiocassette with our favorite songs and rhymes to our friends in Bruno Ciari Scuola Elementare in Italy. Signore Mauro Presini sent us a tape with Italian songs and rhymes, two drawings, and a brochure with information about their city, Ferrara.
As part of our Winter unit, Jard�n Mundial collaborated with Tsutomu Iyanagi's class of Shimizu Kokusai Junior High School in Shizuoka, Japan. Their project consisted of snowmen drawn by children around the world. Our students used a combination of construction paper, colored paper, oil-based pastel colors, color chalk, pencils, magic markers, and crayons to express themselves.
On January our class made a real snowman on our school playground. We did not have much snow, since it was 40� degrees Fahrenheit and it was melting. But we had fun and took a picture to remember. Afterwards, we made art projects with the help of napkins, construction paper, and magazines clips.
Our unit has also been linked to the Cybersnow Village, part of Electronic Elementary Magazine, from Cromwell Valley Elementary, Maryland, USA.
During the 96-97 school year Mrs. Frontera's students participated in a buddy exchange with another school in Florida. We sent our mascot Aurorito over there, and received Pedro el Pez in our classroom. Again during the 98-99 school year, Aurorito went on another trip. This time he visited Germany, and Jard�n Mundial students received Foxy and Sly in their classroom.
See the pictures of Aurorito, the bear, on his travels to Puerto Rico , California , Florida, and Germany. See the pictures with Pedro el Pez, and with Foxy and Sly. To find a sister school, contact Travel Buddies Project (from Australia).
