Tag Archives: community

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Cranking Up the Makerspace with Student Voice and Failure

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Since the first day of school, students have been asking me when our makerspace will start up.  Last year, we developed a great collaboration with Gretchen Thomas and her students at UGA to hold an open makerspace that students could visit on a weekly basis.  UGA is now in full swing, so we are finally ready to start our collaboration again.

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This year, Gretchen has an eager class of students who will be coming in groups of about 4 every Tuesday and Thursday.  Rather than have every piece of the makerspace available right away, we’ve decided to focus on different aspects so that students develop some knowledge about the parts and gradually move to making choices about what they are really passionate about.  Students signup on an open signup sheet hanging outside the library.  There are 10-12 slots in three 30-minute sessions.  Each day has two choices.

 

Eventually the UGA students will plan activities to bring, but for now, they are introducing things we already have in the space.  For our first session, I was excited to have Carlos and Carlena offer their craft.  Their story has grown so much since my first post about a craft they discovered in a magazine.  Just this week, Carlos and Carlena shared their craft during our Dot Day celebrations by telling Sherry Gick and her 2nd graders how they are making their mark by teaching others how to make this craft that they discovered.  I loved seeing them grow from an uncertainty of their interests to finding something they are excited to read about, make, and share with others.

The UGA students in our makerspace this week brought supplies to do this beading craft with students as one option.  Carlos brought even more beads to use and shared his expertise with students in the makerspace as well as people just visiting the library with their mentors.

This aspect of our makerspace was very successful and calming.

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The other choice was to use the iPads with our Sphero robots.  Students were so excited to try out Sphero this year, but we ran into lots of problems.  First, the Spheros didn’t charge like they were supposed to.  Then, they were all connecting to random iPads instead of the one they were supposed to be connecting to.  Luckily, we had Sterling Bailey with us who had helped in our space last year.  He stay cool and collected through the whole epic failure and continuously thought of things he could try.  He helped the students to push through the frustration and keep trying different things to get their Spheros to connect and work.  While it wasn’t successful on the programming side of things, I think students learned a valuable lesson in maintaining patience in frustration and persevering.

We are ready to try again every Tuesday and Thursday through December!

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A Visit with Illustrator R. Gregory Christie

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We have such an amazing community.  Anytime we have a wish or a dream that we put out there, we somehow find a way to make it happen. This year, our supportive PTA budgeted money for us to have a school-wide author or illustrator visit.  These types of visits are huge learning experiences for our students because they connect them to the real people behind the books on our shelves and inspire their own art and stories.  Author/illustrator visits are hard to do for an entire school every year because they take a lot of financial support to pay speaking fees and travel for the author/illustrator.  I am so thankful that our PTA brought Gregory Christie to our school this year for every grade.

From R. Gregory Christie’s site:

R. Gregory Christie has been working as an illustrator for over 20 years.

He has illustrated over fifty books,as well as collaborated with clients

such as The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vibe, The Wall Street Journal,

The New York Times, The Kennedy Center, Pete Seeger, Queen Latifah ,

and Karyn Parsons on a variety of projects.

Our day kicked off with Kindergarten and 1st grade in their own sessions.  Mr. Christie took time to read a bit of A Chance to Shine and talk about how he connects the text of the story to his art.  What the students in these grades loved the most was seeing an illustration come to life before their eyes.  It was like magic.  Mr. Christie got the students to come up with some drawing ideas.  They wanted a cat.  Then he asked them to think about more details, so they added a bad cat from Korea.  Using these details, he started to draw.  He constantly checked in with them to see if his drawing was matching the text.  If it wasn’t, they gave him reminders and held him accountable for what to draw.  I loved how he connected this to what an editor does.

During our 1st grade visit, we had a bit of excitement: a real fire emergency.  We all had to evacuate while fire trucks and firefighters came to investigate our building.  The kids were fantastic, and Mr. Christie was so flexible with this unexpected part of our day.  First grade came back in for a few more minutes and we adjusted our schedule for the rest of the day.

Our 2nd and 3rd graders had a chance to really study some paintings and consider the mood of them.  They also compared two paintings to see what was similar and different.

These students loved it when Mr. Christie drew the face of Jazz Baby but then let students come up and collaborate on the drawing to help tell a story.  They only had  few seconds to add to the drawing.  He started asking them to be accountable for their work by telling what they were trying to achieve by drawing what they did.  After several students, he came in and added his own twist to the drawing.

Mr. Christie visited both PreK classes individually and read Jazzy Baby and A Chance to Shine.  Then, he took time to draw Jazz Baby and some other things like birds and dogs.  The kids loved having those illustrations left in their class.  My favorite part of this time was when the PreK students were able to show him their artwork and talk about what they did in their own artwork that was inspired by his artwork.  This was so empowering for our smallest students.

In our 4th and 5th grade, students had a special treat.  They saw Mr. Christie’s first book that he has written and illustrated.  It isn’t published yet, but they were treated to parts of the F & G version of the book.  He also took them through several of the books and how the illustrations came together.  Students saw the very first book that Gregory Christie did called Palm of My Heart.  It was great to see this first book side by side with the newest book to see how his illustrations changed or stayed the same.  Students shared a lot about why Mousetropolis stood out to them with its cute mice and its vibrant colors.  These students were also treated to a special video production that is yet to be released about an African American ballet performer.  It was a session full of special opportunities for our students.

I loved capturing some words from Gregory Chrisitie throughout the day.  Students heard:

“When a book starts it’s a manuscript.  When the book it comes to me.  The words can help you feel that it’s an upbeat bright colored book.”

“It’s graphic.  You see a lot of negative and positive space.”

It takes about a year to do a book.

Body language is important when you are illustrating a book.

I know these students will remember this visit for years to come.  We now have all of our Gregory Christie books autographed and ready for checkout in the library.  Thank you again to our PTA for this opportunity, and thank you Avid Bookshop for helping with our book sales.

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Dr. Seuss Day: Our Read Across America Celebration

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Today was the beginning of a very exciting week in the Barrow Media Center.  Each year on March 2nd, we schedule guest readers for every classroom in the school.  These readers select favorite Dr. Seuss books to share with our students.  It is amazing to see our community come together for this event.  Each time we celebrate, there are new faces that join our readers.

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Courtney Tobin helped me this year to organize readers.  She created a Signup Genius and parent leaders in each grade level began sharing the signup.  It was also shared with our regular library volunteers and on our library and PTA Facebook pages.  By this morning, we had almost 2 readers for every classroom.

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Readers gathered in the library, chose their books, and socialized before we took a group picture.

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Then, students escorted them to their classrooms to read.  I quickly ran around to as many classrooms as I could snapping pictures.  It was so special to see students circled up on the floor listening to the words of Seuss spoken into the air.  There were also special memories shared as readers brought in their own copies of books that they had read to their children or had even owned as a child.  My wife, Denise Plemmons, shared a copy of Green Eggs and Ham with my daughter’s PreK class and she was able to show them where she had written her name in the book when she was a child.

These are the kinds of things that can’t be replaced by technology.  While I’m a huge advocate of using technology to share our voice, it doesn’t replace the shared experience of sitting around a book, hearing the pages turn, and losing yourself in the illustrations.  Thank you to all of the readers who took time to share stories with our Barrow readers.

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This was just a warm-up to the 38 skype and Google hangout sessions that we have schedule this week for Read Across America and World Read Aloud week!

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Our Open Makerspace Featuring UGA Students

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Students have been eager to use our makerspace this year.  I’ve been incorporating making into collaborative projects with grade levels, small groups, and even individual students, but there is still a strong pull to come to the makerspace to dream, tinker, and create without the constraints of a grade level curriculum.

My struggle is finding the time to balance giving students open time to explore along with the classes that I teach each day and collaborative projects that I support.  I’ve been having a conversation about this with Gretchen Thomas, instructional technology instructor at UGA.  Here and there we have found times for some of her students to come and work with my students.  Gretchen has even come in herself to work with students in the makerspace.  However, I wanted something more consistent and dependable for students and teachers instead of random emails inviting them to use the space.

This semester, we are experimenting with something new called open makerspace.  Gretchen has several independent study students as well as a Maker Dawgs course.  The independent study students have each selected a day of the week to be here from 11-12:15.  Gretchen’s Maker Dawg class will take turns coming on Thursday from 11-12:15.  This means that every day is covered.  This time of day overlaps into 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade recess.  Students have the option of coming to the makerspace instead of going to recess, but one of the big requirements is that they can’t come every day.  We still want them to get outside and enjoy the sunshine with their friends, too.

The UGA students and I are trying to work out a routine.  During this first week of our experiment, it looks something like this:

  • I send periodic reminders to teachers that the makerspace is available every day from 11-12:15.
  • Students come at any time during that time frame.
  • They sign in with the UGA student and say what they hope to explore or work on.
  • Together with the UGA students, they setup areas around the library to work on things like littleBits, Sphero, etc.
  • The UGA student tinkers right alongside the students as well as moves between groups to make sure they are keeping materials safe and being productive.
  • Every so often, the UGA students do a time check since the students get lost in the making and forget the time.
  • Before students leave, the UGA student prompts them to clean up as much as they can, and then the UGA student straightens and organizes in between groups.
  • When there’s not a high traffic time, it’s a great time for the UGA student to organize the maker supply cart, the littleBits, or the robotics kits.

I won’t lie that this week has been chaotic and exhausting.  I think that the process is going to work, but each day this week I had a new UGA student, so that meant teaching this routine to someone new each day.  Gretchen came to help on 2 of the days.  Most days this week, I didn’t have a moment to stop and fully eat my own lunch since it falls within this 11-12:15 block.  This will change, though.  It takes some time to get a new routine up and running.

What did this week look like?  So many exciting things happened.  The biggest is that 54 students have used the space this week during that one-hour time block, and that’s not including Friday!

We also got to try out Google Cardboard, which was just a little bit exciting for some of our students!

And just for fun, here’s one of our UGA makerspace helpers!

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Polar Express Day: A Barrow Tradition Filled with Community

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Ask any Barrow student about some of their favorite events from the year and Polar Express Day will most likely be on the list.  Every year in December, our school transforms into a train station with a train bound for the North Pole.  We wear our pajamas to school, and every class in the school comes to the library to listen to the Polar Express.  On their way, students pass by numerous decorations that have magically appeared overnight.

They sit in rows as if on a train and are served hot chocolate while the hot chocolate song plays overhead.

Then, students listen to the story.  At the end of the story, every student receives a bell with the word “Always Believe” whispered into their ear.

As they exit, they each receive a candy cane as they return from the North Pole back to their classrooms.  I love watching the magic happen for our PreK students as well as students who are new to Barrow, and I love the excitement and bit of sorrow that 5th grade students have as they experience their final Polar Express.

Each year, this event amazes me by the amount of community that is involved in staging the event.

  • Our principal organizes a schedule and gets feedback from the teachers about their assigned time.  She also purchases hot chocolate, cups, and candy canes and arranges with the lunchroom to have the hot chocolate made throughout the day.

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  • A parent volunteer creates a volunteer sign up to have about 3 adults at each Polar Express session to assist with preparing hot chocolate, serving it, and handing out bells.  This year I also had tremendous help from Perrin, a former Barrow student, who came back to volunteer for the entire day.  She organized volunteers and made sure our hot chocolate kept flowing all day long.

Barrow Media Center Polar Express

  • Some years, a team of volunteers have a bell stringing day where they prepare all of the bells and store them individually in egg carton trays.  This year, a retired teacher prepared all 575 bells for us.  Thank you Terri Sheppard!

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  • I setup the library.  This year, I arranged the shelves to form a path that took students to their seats.  I lined the path with white lights, flowers, stockings, and a tree.  I also setup the chairs, spotlight to shine on the book, and falling snow on our projection board.

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  • Overnight, a team of teachers take time to decorate the hallway.  This special group is our spirit committee and always involves teachers like Mimi Elliott-Gower, Sarah Britton Vaughn, Allison Griffith, and anyone else they can round up.  The kids love coming in to see what the school looks like on this special day.

One of the students who was leaving Polar Express gave me a huge hug and said, “Mr. Plemmons…we are so lucky at our school to have things like this.”  Another student said, “Thank you, Mr. Plemmons, for having this for us.”  It took me by surprise, but I couldn’t agree more.  I’m so thankful for our sense of community that pulls together to make these kinds of events truly magical for students.

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Fifth Grade Battle of the Books Had a Visit with Deborah Wiles

IMG_3370Last month at the Texas Library Association conference, I had the opportunity to attend a session with multiple authors talking about writing historical fiction.  Deborah Wiles was on the panel.  I’ve know “Debbie” for several years now.  I first heard her at the Decatur Book Festival, and when she spoke, she created a magical presence with her words.  When she speaks, she truly breathes story into the air.  Hearing her speak and reading the words that she writes on the pages of her books gives me such a connection to her southern spirit and reminds me of growing up in the rural town of Blue Ridge.  About five years ago, Deborah Wiles came to Barrow Elementary as my very first author visit.  She sang One Wide Sky with PreK-1st grade and had upper grades writing in their imaginary journals.  She even led a professional learning session for teachers after school.  When, I saw Debbie in Texas she told me that she wanted to stop by and see the new media center, so we setup a time.

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Since she was already stopping by, I asked her if she would like to meet our 5th grade battle of the books students since they had read Countdown for their competition.  I’m so glad that we decided to do that because today’s visit was simply magical.

While she was stuck in traffic, the 5th graders worked on making her some birthday cards for when she arrived.  We also displayed the blackout poetry that we had made using Freedom Summer and Revolution.

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When she arrived today, she took a seat in the rocking chair that my dad made and started sharing stories.  She let the students talk to her about reading Countdown.  The depth of their conversation made me realize how different an author visit can be when the students have not only read the books but also spent extensive time discussing them.

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The students talked about the complexity of her plots, the character traits of their favorite characters, and shared specific details of scenes that seemed suspenseful.  In fact, some of the scenes that students chose to describe were some of the very scenes that were the most difficult for Deborah Wiles to write.

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Next, she showed us lots of pictures of where Countdown came from.  The students loved seeing the real places that inspired the story.  They also loved seeing how the title and cover art for the book changed and how the editor gave Deborah Wiles feedback on her work.

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Before students went back to class, we told her “Happy Birthday” and gave her some cards and artwork.  She spent time signing books that students pre-ordered from Avid Bookshop and chatting more with students about books and writing.

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While she was signing, we enjoyed birthday cake that she brought for us to enjoy!

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Before she left, we spent some time roaming around the school and looking at how much it had changed since the last time she was here.  Now, she will go to Avid Bookshop for a signing this afternoon at 4:30.

The students are all very eager to read Revolution, which publishes on May 27th.  I gave away 2 ARCs of Revolution today as well as some copies of Countdown.  We are so thankful to Deborah Wiles for driving to Athens and spending time with us today.  The students could have listened to her for the rest of the day.  We can’t wait to see her back in our library soon.

 

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First Grade’s Fun Skype with Crabtree Co-creator, Jon Nichols

IMG_3166Our community amazes me.  Every year, new people within our school community step forward with ideas for our library program.  People share their talents, their connections, and their love of education.

This year, Rachel Gabara, a parent of a 1st grader, introduced me to a new book called Crabtree by brothers Jon and Tucker Nichols.  I’ll admit that it was my first time hearing of the book, but when I looked at the praise for Crabtree on the McSweeney’s website, I was floored.  Authors like Jon Klassen, Maira Kalman, Lemony Snickett, and Jon Agee all raved about the book.  I immediately ordered it from Avid Bookshop.  When I got it, I was raving about the book as much as the reviews.  It is jam packed with illustrations of all kinds of things.

Here’s the official trailer:

Crabtree loves to collect things.  The problem is that he has so much stuff he can’t find anything.  He begins to organize his collections of stuff in order to find his false teeth.  Each object on the page is labeled with its name, so kids are introduced to all kinds of tools and gadgets that they’ve probably never heard of.  It’s a great books just for the sorting, vocabulary, and potential research opportunities.  However, the humor and gadgets of the book are what really make it so much fun to read over and over again.  Even the dust jacket of the book has a collection of gadgets and unfolds into a poster.  At the end of the book, there’s a game where you can go back through the book finding various objects.  You need to order a copy of this book today.  It’s so much fun.

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When Rachel introduced me to the book, she told me that she was friends with the co-creator, Jon Nichols.  She offered to reach out to him to see if he would Skype with us.  He agreed, so we got to work preparing for our visit.  All of the 1st grade classes read the book in advance and pulled in some categorizing and math standards along the way.  Students also spent some time writing out questions for Jon.

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Today, the whole 1st grade came to the library and we connected with Jon in California.  He was a fantastic Skype author full of energy.  He told the kids a bit about how he and his brother made the book together.  Both of them were involved in the writing and illustrating process, and it was their first book.

Then, Jon showed the kids how he draws Crabtree.

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The students loved it when Jon let them ask him some questions.  When authors do this, the teachers help me a lot.  They start choosing students from the audience to start forming a line to the side of the screen and camera.

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As they get in line, we try to check to make sure the questions are all different and are actually questions.  I move the camera down to student-level.  Then, students take turns speaking to the author directly into the camera.

Today, students asked Jon questions like:

  • What kind of paint did you use?  He showed us the pens used to draw the illustrations and we learned that the colors were created by computer at the publisher because they didn’t like how real paint looked on the paper.

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  • Why did you call him Crabtree?  We learned that it was a mixture of a favorite place to visit but also the idea of 2 things that don’t really go together: crabs and trees.
  • Can 1st graders write books?  Jon was so enthusiastic in his answer and told them that they could absolutely write books.  He ran through the whole writing process and got them excited about their ideas for stories.

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There were many more wonderful questions.  I was really surprised by how well 1st graders asked questions.  The teachers did a wonderful job giving students time to think and write their questions down before they came.

We are so thankful to Jon for taking time out of his busy day to connect with us.  If you haven’t read Crabtree yet, we highly recommend it.

 

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University of Georgia #Geniuscon Research Partners

geniuscon uga (2)Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd grade class has been participating in #Geniuscon since January.  Geniuscon is an opportunity for students to show their “genius” by exploring a real-world topic that matters to them.  Students go through an inquiry research process that centers around their interests and questions.  This year, the overall question for Geniuscon is “If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?”

First, students kicked off the project with some brainstorming.

Then, they chose topics and spent time developing questions around those topics.

Next, they continued to develop their questions, fine tune their topics, and make a plan of where to find information or who to ask questions.

While this step was going on, Mrs. Ramseyer and I started having a conversation with Gretchen Thomas, teacher at the University of Georgia.  Gretchen first reached out to me on Twitter for another project at our school, and our conversations led us to Geniuscon.  Her undergraduate students do 20% projects, which is very similar to what our students are doing.  We thought that it would be wonderful for her UGA students to partner with our 2nd graders.  Her UGA students would learn about working with kids as well as how we were journeying through this type of research project, and our students would benefit from having an older learner facilitating the research process.  Gretchen’s class is not all education majors, which actually brings even more interesting perspectives and connections to our project.  Some of her students are football and basketball players at UGA, so the students really liked that too.

Gretchen actually teaches 2 different groups of UGA students who are able to come to our school, so Mrs. Ramseyer worked with her through email to pair up UGA students and Barrow students.  Today, the first group of UGA students arrived.  We briefly met on the carpet to set the focus and then UGA and Barrow students paired and moved throughout the library to work.  Students grabbed a computer from cart and logged into their Google drive.

This is what it looked like:

Using their list of topic questions, they had a conversation with their UGA partner.  We quickly saw that many of our Barrow students just wanted to answer their research questions with their own words.  This is certainly a valid piece of the process, but students weren’t all thinking about where they might go to research beyond themselves.

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Mrs. Ramseyer, Gretchen, and I all walked around and checked in with groups and nudged them to start thinking about where they might go to find more information.  There were some amazing things happening in a short amount of time.  During the debrief at the end, students shared what they accomplished during the work time.

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Here are some examples of what students said:

  • I learned how to make a spreadsheet and started adding things to it
  • I’m making a Google form survey to send to teachers
  • I learned that playground equipment is expensive.  Some of the pieces are thousands of dollars.
  • I sent an email to our principal and assistant principal
  • I looked at our daily schedule to see where we could put another recess

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I wish that I could have sat in every conversation because it was amazing to see the variety of learning going on.  One of the great things is that there will be so many students experts on so many different tools and strategies that it will support further learning in the class this year.  Students who learned Google forms can teach others.  Students who don’t know what a spreadsheet is or how to make it now have someone to ask.

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I also checked in with our principal because I had not told her that she might get some emails.  She had already read the emailed and is planning to give the student a menu and suggest that she analyze the nutritional facts for the items on the menu.  She was very excited about the potential of the project and collaboration with UGA.

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We are so fortunate to have a university right next to our school.  Thank you, Gretchen Thomas, for sharing your UGA students with us.  I hope they learn as much from us as we learn from them.

 

 

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Little Free Libraries Open for Business

Barrow Little Free Library

Barrow Little Free Library

After a year long project with last year’s 5th graders, our 2 Little Free Libraries are finally open for business.  This project has been one of the most meaningful ones that I have been a part of.  Just to highlight a few accomplishments of everyone involved:

  • After a post on the Barrow Media Center Facebook page that simply described a wish to have a LFL, teacher Sara Cross jumped on board to make this project happen in 5th grade.
  • Art teacher, Rita Foretich, along with her student teacher took a huge leadership role in creating multiple jobs for students, using Google sketchup to design libraries, and committing to painting the libraries in art.
  • Co-founder Rick Brooks took time out of his busy schedule to skype with our students to answer their questions and encourage them on their project.
  • Students in 5th grade wrote persuasive letters to multiple places which resulted in Lay Park becoming our 2nd location and Home Depot built and donated the 2 libraries and paint.
  • Students in 5th grade encouraged students in the whole school to donate books which resulted in about 18 boxes of used books to fill the libraries.  Other incredible supporters like Barrow grandparent, Camilla Bracewell, donated money to support the registration of the libraries and additional supply & book purchases.
  • Our project won the Eve Carson Service Learning Award at the 5th grade moving on ceremony

Our move into our new school delayed our installation a bit.  Mrs. Foretich kept the libraries over the summer and gave them some coats of clear coat to protect them from the weather.  Her husband also spent time making sure that the doors on the libraries opened smoothly after getting a bit sticky from the clear coat.

We entered this year with one big final step:  installation.  I should have known that once again our community would step up to support this project.  Susan Henderson, librarian at Fowler Drive, suggested that her neighbor Chase Cook, who is a Barrow parent, would be a good person to contact.  She even took time to ask him herself.  Chase was more than happy to help.  Another Barrow parent, Chris Adams, was suggested, and without hesitation he also agreed to help.  I was amazed that two parents who weren’t even involved in the project along the way were so willing to step up and offer their talents and service to this project.  Chase and Chris spent a hot Friday afternoon digging the holes at Barrow and Lay Park and installing both libraries.  I can’t thank them enough for their time and hard work.

Refilling the Barrow Little Free Library

Refilling the Barrow Little Free Library

On Sunday September 8, I filled the Barrow Little Free Library with books.  The Barrow library features our school theme of “Where am I in the world?”  You’ll find the tree that owns itself, Georgia peaches and peanuts, the GA flag & US flag, and GA football.  This week on our morning news show, I showed a video to all students explaining what this new mysterious box was all about.

The afternoon after the video was shown was a busy time for our library and it was almost empty that day as students were eager to take home a book.  We’ve already had to refill it once.

Lay Park Library

Lay Park Library

On Monday September 9, Randy Haygood opened the Lay Park Little Free Library.  This library features an old Barrow school look.  A giant sun radiates from the roof and the back features a beautiful flower garden.  I delivered 6 boxes of books to him so that he would have books to refill the library for a few weeks.  I can’t wait to see how this little library supports reading at Lay Park and the surrounding communities.

Lay Park Library back view

Lay Park Library back view

These libraries are truly a gift.  They represent so many voices, ideas, and creativity from students, parents, grandparents, and our community.  Thank you Athens community for supporting this project.  Enjoy these libraries for years to come.

 

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Painting our Little Free Libraries

Paint generously donated by the Athens Oconee Home Depot

Paint generously donated by the Athens Oconee Home Depot

It’s been awhile since I’ve done an update on our 2 Little Free Libraries.  We’ve had so many end-of-the-year events that it has slowed us down a bit.  Mrs. Foretich, our art teacher, and I sat down and looked at the designs that student groups submitted and narrowed it down to the 2 designs.  One will feature things that show “where I am in the world”.  It will include GA & US symbols as well as some Athens symbols.  The other design features a sun shine with a red color that resembles the bricks of Barrow school.  Ms. Foretich worked with Kenneth Sims and other employees at the Athens-Oconee Home Depot to select paints, and once again Home Depot generously donated these items.  I can’t say “Thank You” enough to this business.  They have been a huge supporter of this project.

While the 5th grade is practicing for the Moving On Ceremony and making music videos in music class, Mrs. Foretich is pulling small groups to paint.  Students primed both libraries first.  Then, designs were drawn on in pencil before beginning the painting process.  Students repeatedly went back to the paper designs and also talked with the designers to make sure the design was staying true to the vision.  Students even worked on mixing paints to get various shades of colors that were needed on the libraries.IMG_0715

Next week, Mrs. Foretich and I will travel to Lay Park and meet with Randy Haygood to discuss the exact location of our second library.  KenDarius, a Barrow 5th grader, is working on a plan for some rising 4th & 5th graders to deliver books to this library throughout next year as it needs to be filled.  He will join us next week when we meet with Randy.

Throughout this project, we’ve tried to keep students at the center.  They have been a part of almost every decision in the project and were instrumental in getting us the supplies that we needed through their carefully written letters.  Of course, this student involvement has stretched this project to a year-long project, but I think it just shows how when you take time to allow students to participate in the process, rich and rewarding experiences and learning occur.

Paint generously donated by the Athens Oconee Home Depot