Spring 2008

Middletown Education Collaborative (MEC) is pleased to announce the Spring 2008 Grant Awards. Ten individual grants totaling $5,963.27 were funded offering a variety of educational initiatives to benefit each of Middletown’s public schools.

AQUIDNECK SCHOOL KINDERGARTEN
Diane Lukowicz – Kindergartners as Writers and Illustrators

The purpose of this grant is to provide kindergarten students the opportunity to write and illustrate stories. The students will learn about “Image Making” through the use of Eric Carle books. Image making is the ability to create pictures through art, which Eric Carle demonstrates in his collection of books. First, the students will create a story, then they will illustrate their stories through the Eric Carle technique of “Image Making”. A certified Image Making consultant will come to Aquidneck School weekly to work one-on-one with the kindergarten students. Individually, the consultant will take each student through the process of writing and illustrating a book. The books will be laminated and bound. The end product is each child will create a book that he/she will read to family members in the Spring 2008.

GAUDET MIDDLE SCHOOL 6th GRADE
Carol Lopes – Social Studies Resources

This grant will purchase resource materials for the Grade 6 Social Studies classes.  10 different sets of Primary/Secondary sources will be purchased for perpetual use within the school among all 200-250 grade 6 students.  Sets will include: Assassination at Sarajevo, World War: 1914-1918, Struggle for Women’s Rights in America, 1920′s: America Enters the Modern Age, The Great Depression in America, The Coming of War: 1939,  The Holocaust,  Japanese-American Internment Camps,  World War II: Life at Home, and The Atomic Bomb.

J.F.KENNEDY SCHOOL
Gail Abromitis – Calling All Authors

Calling All Authors is an enrichment literature project that will include students from all grades K-4 as authors, who will create literature that will be shared with the entire school population of 353 children. The students will come either before or after school or even during their recess time and utilize the computer room to create literature that may include interesting stories, or interviews, or essays, or poems, or even plays that would be published for the school.The purpose of the literature project is to encourage writing for all students at JFK and, most importantly, to celebrate the success that students have made in writing.This project could become perpetual as long as there is a person who would volunteer to meet with children before school, during recess, or after school to allow them to use the computer to hone their writing skills and publish their writing.

To help create interesting text, or a book-like feeling, a computer program called “Stationery Studio” by Fablevision would be purchased so that children could place their texts within a medium that would allow them to have illustrations pertinent to their topics and would create a “book-like” feel to their writing. It may even encourage children to take risks with their writing that would mirror what the image is portraying; for example, there may be a picture that would include a slide and the child may choose to make their text look like it is s-l-i-d-i-n-g along with it; much like authors do when they write. Celebrating writing in this way will reinforce what is already happening in the classrooms and additionally give children an enrichment experience that they can use as an outlet to share their love of writing with the entire school population!

GAUDET MIDDLE SCHOOL FIRST LEGO LEAGUE ROBOTICS TEAMS
Two LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education Base Sets

The FIRST LEGO League (FLL) mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence,communication and leadership. FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology;” it is an organization founded in 1989 in order to develop ways to inspire students.

The FLL is a program for children ages 9-14 that combines a hands-on, interactive robotics program with a sports-like atmosphere. For the past few years, Gaudet Middle School has had two teams that participated in the program.  Each team is limited to a maximum of ten children.  Presently, eighteen Gaudet students participate in the FIRST LEGO League competition.  The students range from fifth to seventh grade.  The planning for the competition starts every year in July.  The Worldwide competition kicks-off in September and runs through March; the State competition is held in mid-January.

Typically, the children meet once or twice a week; each session lasts approximately ninety minutes. In the competition, the teams are scored in four categories; teamwork, robot design (including program), research projects, and robotic competition.  The robotic competition is the hook to get the children interested.  The other components of the program enrich the children’s education. The program allows the children to apply concepts they learn in math and science. The children research a problem in science and present a solution to a team of judges. The children are judged on innovation, creativity and their presentation.  Additionally, the presentation builds public speaking confidence in the children.  These two new sets will allow the teams to effectively compete in future competitions.

AQUIDNECK SCHOOL 4TH GRADE
Cynthia Tanguay – Geology Rocks 

This grant will allow “Geology Rocks!”, a classroom visit that is conducted by POW Science of Middletown, to visit each 4th grade classroom. A POW Science representative will bring an assortment of rocks and minerals for students to examine and to identify.  Students will be given a matrix that lists minerals and their properties.  Students will conduct observations and scratch tests to identify the minerals in question.  This enrichment aligned with the fourth grade KITES sciencekit, Rocks and Minerals.

GAUDET MIDDLE SCHOOL
Food, Nutrition & Wellness Committee – Yoga Program

Research has shown that our current middle school students do not get enough physical exercise. The Middletown Nutrition & Wellness Committee thinks that after-school physical activities will provide our children with the necessary exercise to provide a healthy lifestyle. This grant will provide for a series of after-school yoga sessions with a certified instructor. The goal of these yoga sessions will be to introduce students to easy and practical yoga techniques for self-awareness, self-care and stress-management. During each yoga class participants will practice easy breathing techniques to relax and manage stress, warm up exercises, yoga postures, partner or group yoga activities, visualization/relaxation and visual art projects related to yoga. Each class will focus on awareness of one different aspect of yoga, such as: breathing, body, posture/alignment, finesse and balance.

MIDDLETOWN HIGH SCHOOL CHORUS
Claudia Carlson Vars – Vocal Clinicians

This grant will provide funds to hire professional vocal clinicians to come to Middletown High School to work with both the chorus and choral ensemble which total 70 students. The clinicians would be hired to come for a specific day and block of time. Each clinician would visit once or twice depending on the cost.

AQUIDNECK & FOREST AVE 2nd GRADE & MULTIAGE
Renee Kaminitz – Life in 1627 Plymouth Colony

Children read historical genre to understand how people in the past lived and how their lives influence our way of life today. This grant will allow Aquidneck School to invite a Pilgrim into the 2ndgrade & Multiage classrooms. A museum teacher will portray an actual resident of 1627 Plymouth Colony. The colonial visitor will be wearing an accurate reproduction costume and will use their own character’s unique story to frame their one-hour program. For that hour the year is 1627 and the museum teacher will speak with a regional, English dialect of the 17th century. Using reproduction artifacts to enhance the students’ experience, the visitor will share a basket of 17th-century household items familiar to every colonial child.  As a highlight of the program, two children will be invited to try on colonial style children’s clothing.

By traveling back in time with a Pilgrim, students will investigate the past and compare their misconceptions to the facts we know today. The students will read books, purchased with this grant, to prepare them for the visit.  The grant also includes a teacher’s booklet.

MIDDLETOWN HIGH SCHOOL
Dana Ramey – Spanish Language & Culture Immersion

This grant will assist with the balance of costs associated with MHS Spanish students traveling to Cemanahuac in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This highly-regarded facility gives Spanish lessons to attendees from all over the world. This facility is promoted by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. The Rhode Island chapter awards a grant to teachers of Spanish yearly for a week’s program. Sr. Ramey is a recipient of this grant as well as a Fullbright grant to help with expenses in Mexico, which will allow his students the opportunity to target all five of the World Language content standards and all of the Applied Learning Standards described by the State of RI. Research shows that people who have the opportunity to immerse themselves inthe target language will learn far better. This grant provides the opportunity to use what students have learned to date and to improve their skills dramatically through a fantastic travel opportunity that will broaden the horizons of the students for their upcoming roles in college and life in general. The group will be departing February 14 and returning on the 22nd.

FOREST AVE MULTIAGE & KINDERGARTEN
Camille Moy – Cultures Through Kites

This grant would service 1 Multiage and 2 Kindergarten classrooms at Forest Avenue Elementary School. The “Cultures through Kites” program is a two-part program that includes a one hour presentation and two art sessions per class.

The first part of the program involves learning about the Japanese culture with Chris Silvia, a local resident who has traveled extensively through Japan studying the culture, language and craft of kite-making. He will present the Japanese culture through stories, hand-crafted kites, food, and language. The children will be encouraged to sample different types of Japanese foods, learn a few Japanese words and every child will receive their name written in the Japanese language for a keepsake.

The second part of the program is a series of art sessions with Clara Morgan of  “Art For Kids”. Mrs. Morgan will lead a multi-stage art project with each of the three classrooms where each child will create a “mushi dako”, a bug kite made by Japanese children. The mediums will include tissue paper and balsa wood. To conclude the “Cultures through Kites” program, the parents of the students will be invited to Forest Avenue School to participate in the kites’ first flight.