Feb 8, 2008
At Meadow Pond Elementary School
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Schools work to help Chinese preschool
Last April, Meadow Pond Elementary School teachers Denise Martabano and Tricia Castellone traveled to Beijing, China, to bring a delivery of alphabet and counting books created by their students to a local preschool. This year, they are aiming to repeat the project, using it to teach their kindergarten and third grade students about China, charity and writing.
“For four- and five-year-olds, they’re blowing us away with what they’re remembering and what they can do,” said Ms. Castellone. As part of the “We Have Buddies in China, Too!” project, the children not only researched China to decide what types of examples to use in the books, they began communicating with students in China, developing an e-mail based pen-pal relationship with a fourth grade student in Beijing named Luiyi.
In addition to the teaching books, the students were able to raise $785 last year, by writing letters to local businesses asking for donations. Ms. Martabano and Ms. Castellone are hoping to repeat the feat this year, and have already raised $465. The money from both last year and this year is going to help to refurbish the nursery school’s kitchen, which is run-down and in need of repair.
Ms. Castellone used the project as a way to combine two units in the classroom — social studies and writing. The students learned about Chinese culture and history while doing research, and at the same time were walked through the writing process, from coming up with ideas and researching similar books, all the way up to creating rough drafts and final copies of the books.
Once the writing of the books is complete, the students worked with their buddies in kindergarten, which they have been meeting weekly, to illustrate them, using pictures of objects that would be familiar to Chinese preschoolers — tea, kites, ice cream.
“They were able to really take ownership” of the project, said Ms. Martabano. “They’re very motivated.”
Over the course of the project, students in both classes learned about their counterparts in China. They received photos of the preschool that they were helping, and looked at some of the cultural differences.
“It made it so real for the kids,” Ms. Castellone said. “They were able to see that the kids were so happy with what they have.” The students in China go to class in a school with no heat, only three rooms and 50 students in each room, she said.
When the teachers travel to Beijing in April, they will return with name cards made by the preschool students, written in Mandarin for the Meadow Pond students.
Today, the students are celebrating the Chinese New Year with a paper mâché lion, and will be creating dragon masks. Tomorrow, they will be cooking traditional Asian foods, such as stir fry and summer rolls.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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