*Revised Project Posting
Project Information
-------------------
Project Author: Kathy Benson <kbenson@bcps.org>
Project Title: Letters about Communities Around the World
Project Begin & End Dates: 12/01/99 to 5/30/00
Project Summary:
Elementary school students from around the world study their own community
and
learn about communities of other students by exchanging class letters
describing
their communities.
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Project Details
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Project Level: Basic
Curriculum Area: Community Interest, History and Social Studies, Information
Technology, Language
Technologies Used: Email
Full Project Description:
This project is based on the key pals project entitled Letters from Felix
from Classroom Connect's Net Lessons book. The project involves the
following sequence of activities:
1) Observation: The concept of "What is a community?" is introduced. The
students
hear the story Letters from Felix. In this story, a bunny named Felix gets
lost in an
airport and ends up traveling to different places around the world. As he
visits each
place, he writes a letter describing the place. Next, students become more
familiar
with the concept of community by studying their own community. Possible
instructional strategies include going on a walking tour of the community,
showing
a video about the community, viewing a web site about the community, and/or
interviewing family members about the community.
2) Discussion/Analysis: Students discuss their community. They identify
where their
community is located on a map. The concept of type of community is
introduced.
The characteristics of urban, suburban, and rural communities are described.
The
students classify their community as urban, suburban or rural and justify
their
decision. The concept that all communities are different is introduced.
The students
identify unique characteristics of their own community that they are proud
of.
Possible instructional strategies include creating illustrations, posters,
or collages
about their own community and/or role playing being Felix as he comes to the
community. If you wish, visit http://www.abbeville.com/felix/.
3) Creation/Synthesis: As a class, students compose a letter for Felix
describing their
own community based on the following writing prompt:
Felix, the bunny, has arrived in your community from his travels around the
world.
You are to write a letter about your community that he can send to Sophie.
Your
class letter will also be sent to other schools that Felix visits, so that
the boys and
girls in those classes can learn about the community. Felix will send you a
copy of
all of these letters from other classes so you can learn about other
communities too.
In your letter, be sure to include where your community is located, what
type of
community it is (urban, suburban, or rural) and at least one detail that
shows what is
special about your community. Sophie and the other students have never been
to
your community so you need to describe your community so they will
understand.
Your letter will create an impression about your school, so be sure to use
complete
sentences, correct spelling, and appropriate punctuation.
Possible instructional strategies include:
Setup: Have the students analyze the writing prompt above to determine the
form of
their writing (i.e., a letter), the audience of their writing (i.e.,
students in other
schools), the topic of their writing (i.e., their community), the purpose of
their writing
(i.e., to inform).
Pre-writing: Teach the students how to do descriptive writing. As a class,
have
students brainstorm ideas to be included in their letter using a graphic
organizer.
Composing: As a class, turn the ideas in the graphic organizer into a
letter. Explain
the form and style of a friendly letter. Help the students transform their
ideas into
sentences and sequence the sentences.
Editing: Help the student proof read the class letter. Check for proper
grammar,
correct spelling, and appropriate punctuation.
Publishing: Type the letter in using a word processor and e-mail it to the
project's
listserv felix@listproc.umbc.edu. All participants of the listserv will
receive a copy of the letter.
4) Exchange: Wait for letters to arrive from other classrooms. As the
letters arrive,
have students locate the community on a map. Hang a large map with stickers
or
pins where letters have been received from. Read the letters aloud to or
with the
students. Discuss the type of community described (urban, suburban, and
rural) and
what is unique about the community.
5) Evaluation: Assess understanding by having students individually develop
a
poster, presentation, or essay that compares and contrasts one of the
communities
they learned about with their own community. Share these projects with
other
members of your community.
The activities in steps 1-3 above are expected to take about 3 weeks to
complete.
We expect that different schools will be ready for this part of the project
at different
times. Therefore, the exchange period will run for the entire duration of
the project
with different schools sending their Letter from Felix at different times.
Step 5 can
be completed at anytime after sufficient letters have been received. Our
school
plans to do step 5 in time to display the products at a Technology Night
hosted at
our school in April for parents and community members.
Objectives:
Reading for literary experience: Students will appreciate literature by
listening to the
story (Letters from Felix).
Writing to inform: Students will demonstrate the ability to write
effectively to inform
by developing and organizing facts to convey information. In this way,
students
will create meaning for themselves and others. Specifically, students will
compose
(as a class) a written description of a person, place, thing or experience
by
developing a shared letter about their community.
Social studies: Students will also identify and describe a community by
developing
a shared letter about their community. Students will begin to develop
respect for the
diversity of communities by reading and discussing letters received from
other places.
Telecommunications: Students will use telecommunication tools to communicate
ideas by e-mailing letters to and from other locations (indirectly, through
a teacher
account).
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Project Registration Information
--------------------------------
Project Email Address: kbenson@bcps.org
Registration Acceptance Dates: 12/01/99 to 4/01/00
Number of Classrooms: no limit
Age Range: 6 to 9 years
Target Audience: Anyone
Registration Instructions:
Note: We prefer that letters that are e-mailed will be in English to
facilitate the administration
of this project. If you need assistance with translation, try
http://babelfish.altavista.com/.
Steps:
1) A class interested in participating should e-mail the project leader,
Kathy Benson
at kbenson@bcps.org. The subject of the message should be "Register for
Felix". In
the message include:
* Name of your school
* Location of your community,
* Week that you will be ready to send your letter to the participants
* E-mail address where you want to receive messages
* Contact information about how to reach the teacher if the need arises.
2) You will be signed up for the project listserv felix@listproc.umbc.edu .
The result
will be that you will automatically receive messages from other schools
which are
participating. You will also receive an e-mail message from our school about
our
community as a model for the letter your students compose. You will also
receive
directions on how to post to the listserv. Posting merely requires that you
send a
message to a specific e-mail address.
3) Begin the activities for the project. If you do not have access to the
book
Letters From Felix, it can be purchased from
http://www.abbeville.com/felix/.
4) You will be expected to check your e-mail at least once a week while you
participate in the project. You are also expected to post your class letter
when you
said you would.
5) If you have questions or concerns, contact the project leader as soon as
possible
at kbenson@bcps.org. Be sure to let the leader know if you need to drop out
of the
project and/or will not be able to post your letter when you expected.
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Project Contact Information
----------------------------
Kathy Benson - mailto:kbenson@bcps.org
Technology Coordinator - Relay Elementary School - Baltimore County, MD
Baltimore, Maryland
US
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