PS+16+–+John+J.+Driscoll+School

Vincenza Gallassio - Principal

Lillian Basile - 3rd grade teacher Margaret Greco - Computer teacher/liaison - Team Leader Camille Terzino - 3rd grade teacher

=2009-2010 Projects:=  Team Members - 3rd grade teachers, Camille Terzino and Lillian Basile. Computer teacher, Margaret Greco Unit: Non-fiction Text Goals: Students will learn the features of non-fiction text according to the NYS standards. We have decided to explore this unit within our own third grade classes and our own areas of concentration and then share-out. All three classes have students that are english language learners and one class also has special ed. All projects will cover the standards as outlined by Camille Terzino. Camille Terzino is doing an Artist Study with her class and has detailed her project on her page of the NING. Lillian Basile has started her inquiry project by having her students generate questions about a topic of their choice. They used the Internet and library books for research and created Word documents. Her goal is to create a wiki with the class and voicethreads to showcase their work. I will be focusing on Tompkinsville (where PS16 is located) a neighborhood with a rich history. I just started to motivate the class by having them read about Tompkinsville on Wikipedia. They were surprised to find their neighborhood on the Internet. My goal is to create a wikipage with their explorations and we will see where this goes..... PS 16 Group Teacher: Camille Terzino Project title: Artist Study Unit: Non-fiction Goal: Students will learn the features of a non-fiction text NYS Standards: Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding. Standard 2: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression. Standard 3: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation. Standard 4: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction. Acuity: students generate their own questions regarding what they want to know about the artist they chose. Those questions led to higher-order thinking questions such as: Were they born with this gift or did they have to practice. The teaching point was learning about the different features in a non-fiction text. Reading: Students first were asked to choose a famous artist. They read their books during independent reading time to become familiar with the artist. Writing: The students then wrote an informational report duplicating the key features in the text. EX: Table of contents, introduction, personal life, and accomplishments. The students ended with their thoughts on the artist. Social Studies: Students research the countries their artists were born in. Science: Students observed other hobbies of artists (Leonardo da Vinci was also an inventor who drew his inventions before he built them). Also, the students wanted to know how the artists pick the rocks they would use in their sculptures. Art/Math: Students recreated their favorite pieces of art while learning about line segments, shapes, and symmetry. Technology: Students watched a video on Leonardo da Vinci on http://www.unitedstreaming.com and Picasso on http://www.brainpop.com. Students learned how to use delicious and did most of their research on it. The students are now in the process of writing summaries on their artists and putting them on voice threads. They will also put on the web their paintings along side the famous ones to do a comparison. More to follow, stay tuned ;)