The idea for this project
developed from a need for a way to help my first graders
review the names and sounds of the letters of the alphabet
in a meaningful way, and to provide meaningful associations
for those students having difficulty holding this
letter/sound knowledge. A new camera and the Morris farm
next door to our school merged into an idea for a photo
illustrated alphabet book about the farm. Having never
created a web site before the children and I chose to make
our audience the world!
The children and I made
several visits to the farm to find and photograph concepts
for each letter of the alphabet. There was a lot of
discussion and brainstorming as we chose just the right shot
for each letter. We spent time reading about the Internet
and exploring other sites to get a feel for the many
possible formats to present our work. The children worked on
and shared Home Alphabet associations to get a clearer
vision of how an ABC book would go together.
We drafted rough and
final drafts of text for each letter, problem solved the
page numbers, decided who to dedicate our work to, and put
many of our newly developed reading and math skills into
practice. The students continued their work with a rubric to
self assess their final drafts after reviewing and
discussing examples of work depicting a range of
quality.
Our Computer Lab
Director, Deborah Barrows, taught us how to scan photographs
and guided us through beginning keyboard skills and the
development of web pages for each letter.
This learning process met
or exceeded twenty performance indicators of the Maine
Learning Results for grades K-2 in all curricular areas with
the exception of Health and Physical Education and Foreign
Languages. It also addresses many of our local technology
requirements for all First graders. Hopefully the feedback
and comments about their work will create great feelings of
accomplishment as well as a better concept of geography as
we map responses.
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