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Framingham Public Schools
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2005-2006 Mini-grant Recipients 1st Round Spring 2005 Windows on America Applicant: Carol Berlin- 5th grade teacher, Dunning This fifth grade classroom has children from all over the world, many of whom have been in this country only a few years. Yet these students need to be as knowledgeable about American history as their native-born classmates. The program provides curriculum-based resource kits with games, puzzles, DVDs about American history and geography for ELL students and their families. They can use these kits to get a head start on specific units so they can “hit the ground running” with their peers. Award: $970 Student Council Applicant: James Parr, 3rd grade teacher, McCarthy This program will plan and launch a McCarthy School Student Council, which will discuss and plan school-wide and community activities that will help McCarthy fulfill both academic and social competency goals. The project’s objectives are to give students firsthand experience of leadership and its responsibilities, involve students in sharing their ideas, help all students work together in school, and reach out to help people in our school and our town. Award: $800 Taking it On the Road Applicant: Donna Wresinski – Theater Director, Framingham High School Experienced theater students are participating in a new Performance Workshop, where they will audition, rehearse, build sets, design costumes and perform two children’s theater productions for younger students in Framingham. Not only do the high school students develop their theater arts skills, but the elementary and middle school students are treated to no-cost productions, selected to coordinate with their curriculum. In addition, the older students provide accessible role models, introducing young potential artists to live theater. Award: $1000 Summer Lending Library Applicant: Betty Katz, Carol Wiadro – Reading Recovery Teachers, Barbieri It’s common for children to lose some of their new skills during the long summer vacation. For many at-risk children, this loss can be severe, especially if they don’t have ready access to reading materials and encouragement to use their reading and writing skills over the summer. This program encourages parents and children to be involved together in literacy activities by providing not only the books and writing journals, but also by providing guidance to parents on how they can help their whole families develop regular family-reading events. Award: $1000 Writing with Writers Applicant: Jae Goodwin – 5th grade teacher, Dunning What motivates a great children’s writer? What is his or her own favorite book? Why? How do they get past their stumbling blocks? How has their own life influenced their writing? Where do they get their ideas? These are just some of the questions children will ask and research about some of their favorite children’s authors, using their “mentor’s” life and experiences (and voice!) to help them learn about the writing process and develop their own writing methods and techniques. Award: $992 Opera To Go Applicant: Pat Zucchi – Music Dept Head, Walsh, with the Creative Arts Council of Framingham Combining all the elements of art -- words, music, visual design, drama and dance – Opera can communicate people’s reactions and emotions in ways that words and pictures cannot. Opera To Go will introduce students of all ages to this magnificent art form. Elementary students will learn the elements in Introduction to Opera, creating their own originally composed opera based on a fairy tale. Middle School students will see (and participate in ) the classic opera, Carmen: The Gypsy Life. Award: $1000 Take Home Spanish Library Applicant: Sarah Muirhead, 2nd grade two-way Spanish Teacher, Barbieri The single greatest factor in developing reading fluency is the number of hours spent reading. Especially for students learning to read in a second language, having access to appropriate books to read is critical to their growth. This specialized library provides books leveled to each reader’s own reading level – not excessively hard or frustrating or too easy and boring. The right books make for the kind of pleasurable reading experience that builds life-long reading habits. Award: $413 Jerry Spinelli Teaches Writing Applicant: Jae Goodwin – 5th grade teacher, Dunning “Every time my students have the opportunity to meet a “real” author I am always struck by the way the experience empowers them as writers. Just hearing that David Almond has trouble with his endings made one of my students more willing to take risks with her writing. . . . What greater way to teach my students writing techniques than from master writers they already love? . . .” The fifth grade students will hone their writing skills with the help of beloved author Jerry Spinelli – or at least a Jerry Spinelli research corner in their school. Books, photos, interviews, websites, interactive online chats, Spinelli’s autobiography, and videos are among the resources these fledgling writers will have to inspire and guide them as they write and create their own multi-media presentations. Award: $433 Winter Weekends: Readers’ Theater Applicant: Alison Arnet--, 1ST grade teacher, McCarthy Saturday morning cartoons or live theater? Second and third graders will participate in this Saturday-morning program where they will read, rehearse, and perform two different scripts. The children will improve their written and oral communication skills and demonstrate (through dialogue and movement) their interpretation of literary elements such as plot, character motivation, conflict and tone. They will also learn about speaking clearly, volume, pacing, use of gestures, and expressiveness. Award: $800 Post Office Literacy Center Applicant: Christine Tache’ – Kindergarten teacher, Dunning The classroom Post Office Literacy Center engages kindergarten students through dramatic play situations, while encouraging reading and writing. Children will write and read their own letters, mail letters to each other, “purchase” stamps and other items, sort and deliver mail. A field trip to the local post office introduces them to the role of the post office and letter carriers in helping us communicate with each other. Both field trip and classroom center provide numerous opportunities for teachable moments to “make it click” and “make them think.” Award: $928 Family Enrichment Applicant: Judy McPhee – Community School Coordinator, Woodrow Wilson Not even the best schools can educate children without help from families. This series of five Family Enrichment Nights will highlight literacy, math, and science/technology areas of the curriculum, to help engage families in their child’s education. Participants will make and play literacy and math games and conduct experiments. Materials will have Portuguese translations and actively include Wilson’s bilingual community. Award: $750 2nd Round Fall 2005 Classroom Jeopardy Applicants: Jenn Ansin – 3rd Grade teacher, Luke Fontano – Educational Technology Specialist, Potter Road Making learning fun and exciting engages young students. Using the Jeopardy game to learn and review facts can help children enjoy even those subject areas that tend to be viewed as less than fascinating. Using a TV monitor or screen projection, individual students and classes can try to answer both standard sets of questions and those customized by the teachers. Award: $550 Thayer Grant for Technology and Research Math Mobile Applicant: Sheloham Payne – 6th Grade Math teacher, Cameron Middle School In learning math, practice is everything! Students need home practice to cement math facts and fully understand concepts. This program gives them appropriate tools to use at home, including math games, flash cards, graphic organizers for “Brain Stretcher” word problems, and a progressive activity that students share. It also involves parents in helping to motivate the students with their home study. Award: $792 Growing Plants Applicant: Jane Eggert, B.L.O.C.K.S Preschool ESL teacher. This program will expose preschool ELL students to the language of the science curriculum. They will develop vocabulary specific to the science curriculum and comprehend the growth process and life cycle of seeds through hands-on experience planting seeds and charting their growth. Award: $408 Through the Lens: How We Connect with Others Applicant: Sarah Doyle – 7th Grade ELA/SS teacher, (with Michelle Masella, Special Education, and Sara Cummins, art teacher) Cameron Middle School This program will introduce students to photojournalism and allow them to use a new medium to explore their interpretation of a theme: How do you encounter other people in your life? (a theme of the 7th grade Language Arts Curriculum.) Students will improve writing skills, specifically, developing ideas and finding a voice, as they create a narrative written piece to accompany their photographic essay. They will also develop their oral presentation skills. Award: $950 Listening Library Project Applicants: Beth Herrmann and Hilary Brickley, Walsh Middle School This collection of audio books and supporting materials will help special needs students and students with reading difficulties to independently benefit from sustained silent reading (SSR) times in the classroom. The Listening Library will give these students access to more age-appropriate literature and reinforce the positive experience of reading both for content and for pleasure. The program also provides audio support to help these students cover the required curriculum subject matter, despite their reading difficulties. Award: $850 Hand Skills for Handwriting Applicant: Karen Clarke - Itinerant Occupational Therapist, Hemenway Success in language arts and other subject areas depends on being able to write: it’s hard to express yourself when your hands won’t form the letters. This program supplies kindergarten teachers with specific tools and training in developing multi-sensory activities to help young students develop upper body strength, fine motor skills and visual motor skills crucial for developing good handwriting. It addresses student needs for muscle skills to form letters, ability to use lines and spacing, motor memory to recall letter form, and the endurance to write for increasingly long periods of time. Award: $1000 “We Are People Because of Other People”: Meeting People from Africa Applicants: Laura Goldstein-Mahoney, Amy Trompeter, Thomas Warren -- Grade 6 Social Studies teachers; Cameron, Fuller, and Walsh Middle Schools The study of Geography is as much about the human story as it is about the land. This program brings native citizens of two African countries to meet with each class of sixth graders. They will help the students understand the diversity and complexity of the African continent and broaden student perspectives of what “real life” is like in Africa. Award: $1000 mini grant; $1000 Irving August grant Reading Fluency via Computer Based SE2 Program Applicant: Anne Sullivan, Dunning Students who struggle with reading fluency invest so much energy decoding the words that they have little capacity left for comprehension. Working with the Read Naturally program software will help these students increase their reading fluency (rate, expression, attention to punctuation) to improve reading comprehension. Award: $897 Thayer Grant for Technology and Research English Language Arts B.R.I.D.G.E. Project Applicant: Laurel Martin, Kindergarten teacher, Hemenway To bridge the achievement gap in kindergarten by creating individual programs for each student identified as needing support in naming letters and sound-symbol connections. With the purchase of supplementary materials, provide hands-on small group activities to help with these specific academic needs. Award: $350 (pilot) “The Fire of Life”: Experiencing Myth Through Story Telling Applicant: Larry Wolpe – 4th grade teacher, Stapleton Reading and understanding the elements of myths, fairy tales, fables, tall tales and legends is part of the 4th grade language arts curriculum. Students are also expected to continue to develop their writing skills and styles through workshops and activities. This program merges the two and adds the study of oral storytelling – a natural part of myths and legends. Students will work with a professional storyteller/performer to better appreciate and interpret orally presented stories (listening, inferring, questioning, predicting, connecting), and to create and present their own stories. Award: $975 Jade Walsh Grant for Language Arts Beyond Buddy Reading: Students Cooperatively Create a Books-on-Tape Library Applicant: Blake Beckett – 1st Grade teacher, with Lisa Steck, 3rd grade teacher, Dunning Early readers enjoy and benefit from listening to books on tape in conjunction with following the text. What makes this program interesting is that it’s their third-grade Reading Buddies who will choose the books (specifically for their first-grade Buddy) and record them. The third graders will study aspects of “fluent reading,” select their book, practice until they’re “tape ready,” and develop a reading response activity to demonstrate the first-grader’s comprehension of the book. Not only do both Buddies benefit, but the class then has a library of books on tape for all the students to use. Award: $700 Bronze Café Applicant: JoAnna Robbins, Fuller This three-year-old program was begun to provide special needs students with a way to develop academic and social skills in a functional setting. A student-run coffee shop at Fuller Middle School, offers each student a particular job to perform, promoting independence, increasing self-esteem and hands-on training. While its educational goals are being met on a basic level, additional capital investment (for equipment and enabling more cost-effective bulk purchases) will help it expand and become fully self-sufficient. Award: $500 Increasing Reading Fluency Through Readers’ Theatre Applicant: Christine Gonzalez – grade 2 inclusion teacher, Brophy Second grade students will improve their reading fluency and comprehension via repeated rehearsal and participation in performing arts. Readers’ Theater, with its inherent repeated reading, paired reading, and choral reading, incorporates multiple activities that develop these essential reading skills. Students will learn lines, prepare sets, rehearse and perform multiple presentations for the school. Award: $250 Life in Colonial America Applicant: Jane Shapiro – 5th grade teacher, Dunning Students will learn about everyday life in 1627 in Plymouth Colony through the Plimoth Plantation Classroom Visit Program. They will understand how children worked, played, and were educated and discuss the working of an Early American colonial family. With the help of a costumed, in-character museum educator, and reproductions of 17th century artifacts, it will become 1627 in our classrooms! Award: $540 Study Skills Support Group Applicant: Linda James – 6th grade teacher, Fuller To encourage and support effective study skills for identified 6th graders (12-15,) this after school program will provide supplies, games, software, and fun-based activities. Tied to a specific lesson plan, these activities will help students be better prepared to learn by developing organizational skills and memorization skills, addressing test anxiety, and offering tips for better note taking, test preparation and creating a study area at home. Award: $350 (up to) FHS Cultural Appreciation Day Applicant: Maria Carollo Figueroa – World Language Department Chairperson, Framingham H.S. To promote respect and appreciation of the diverse cultural backgrounds represented in the FHS educational community, students and community members will provide demonstrations and exhibits of the various cultures represented. Award: $1000 NUMBER OF GRANTS AWARDED: 27 TOTAL FUNDS ALLOCATED: $21,198 |
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