Mrs. Bousquets' 3rd Grade Class is excited to be a part of Kids' Day 2010. They will be setting up a table to help build awareness, attendance, and excitement around one of our community's hidden gems, The Counting House Museum. Please make sure to stop by their site and discover what they have come up with. Below is more information on how they became involved with such a great project.
To learn more about the Counting House Museum visit them online!
Service Learning Project
Counting House Museum
This fall, a group of teachers in our district attended a workshop to learn about service learning in the classroom. Service learning is unique in that the children enter an actual partnership with someone in the community to solve an existing problem. Thus, service! At the same time, the work the students do must be related to the curriculum and the goals for learning for the grade level. Thus, learning!
The Old Berwick Historical Society (OBHS) contacted our classroom to assist with the problem of under usage of the Counting House Museum by families in the community. Our task will be to facilitate awareness of this amazing resource. At the same time, the students will gain a better understanding of our town’s history and increase their knowledge of the changes that have occurred as the town has grown to what it is today (3rd grade curriculum).
Thus far, we have had a visitor from the society visit our class, introducing the problem and what they hope to achieve (more families visiting the museum). The children decided that they needed some background information about the museum in order to choose a plan. They worked in groups to brainstorm questions relevant to our goal.
On Wednesday, we will be traveling to the Counting House Museum. The children will tour the museum and interview a museum spokesperson, asking the important questions they have.
Upon our return, the children will use the knowledge they’ve gained from our visit to think about possible ideas we might pursue. They will compare and contrast these ideas to determine which will best meet the goal of informing the public of the museum, resulting in more visitors. Next, they’ll work together to carry out their plan. Evaluating and analyzing their work will be ongoing. Higher-level thinking skills and problem solving strategies will be inherent in this project and will be in a meaningful context, as this is a real-life problem we’re working on! The excitement level in our classroom is high as we get ready to work!!!
Kathy Bousquet, 3rd grade teacher - Central School
No comments:
Post a Comment