The TeachNet Project sponsored with major funding by the AT&T Learning Network,
seeks to improve student achievement by providing training, grants, networking and resource sharing to teachers at four of the Teachers Network affiliates nationwide.
www.qad.com
The Keeping Quilt: Quilting Across the Curriculum
How
it works:
This project uses modern technology and quilts from the past to teach students lessons from across the curriculum. This unit helps explain how families celebrate their cultural heritage. Students will also use quilts as a tool to improve reading, and vocabulary as well as learning to investigate geometric shapes and designs. Students will read TheKeeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco, then participate in a variety of online activities. Students will get to design their own quilt quares, as well as create an edible quilt square which can be eaten at the end of the unit.
Assessment:
This unit uses several different types of assessment. Online quizzes and rubric-based assessments are used on most of the lessons.
Standards:
Reading: Read narrative and expository text, find meaning of unknown words, draw upon a variety of comprehension, recall major points in text, distinguish main idea and supporting details in text, and extract information from text
Social Studies: Draw from historical and community resources to organize the sequence of local historical events and describe how each period of settlement left its mark on the land.
Math: Identify, describe, and classify polygons (including pentagons, hexagons, and octagons).
Software or Materials Used:
Internet connection, digital camera, web page or text document software, The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
Keywords:
quilts, geometry, polygons, tangrams, patterns, family tree
The Students:
The students involved in this project were third graders of varying ability levels. Most of the students had limited experience using the Internet.
Overall Value:
This is an online thematic unit on quilts. Students get experience using the Internet to do reading, math, and social studies lessons. Students will use technology to help them improve their reading, increase their vocabulary, give them an appreciation of children's literature, learn about family traditions and heritage, and gain important math skills.
Details:
Subject area: Language
Second subject area: Math
Starting grade: 2
Ending grade: 5
Tips for the Teacher:
Bring in samples of quilts and ask students to bring in samples. Bookmark web sites in advance and have materials (handouts and supplies) already prepared for students.
Tracee Sudyka
School: Joe Nightingale Elementary
Email: tsudyka@orcutt-schools.net
Tracee Sudyka currently teaches third grade at Joe Nightingale Elementary School in the Orcutt Union School District. Tracee has been a classroom teacher for seventeen years, and has taught grades three though six. Tracee has a strong interest in using technology as a tool for learning. Using technology, her students create variety of student-centered projects each school year.