It's All About the Bronx

Can you believe it? This year is almost over and the project classes are busy working on their Photostory projects. All of the projects center around themes connected to the history of the Bronx.

Ms. Hudson is doing a Walk down memory lane.

Ms. Cruz's students are researching famous landmarks.

Ms. Lewis and Sharkey's students are composing biographies of famous musicians and singers from the Bronx.

And finally, Mr. Williams boys are studying famous sports figures that got their start in the Bronx.

You can see what everyone is doing by clicking on the tabs along the top.

Remember that Ms. Susannah Moran will be in to work with the project classes on Friday, June 18th.

A Blog Project Cafe

Welcome to our special educational blog "Project Cafe" created for the participating teachers, support personnel and administrators of PS 140. This blog will serve as a bulletin board where you can log in and read about the progress of the projects.

This spring 3 classes will be participating in the PBL experience (Project Based Learning). Through this blog, teachers will be able to stay connected and share information. You can voice your opinion or just write your thoughts or ideas with each other by adding 'comments'. It will be like an electronic and interactive bulletin board. It will also serve to document the steps of the project as they develops.

Project Steps

Step 1 - Plan
Topic selection. Develop an Essential Question adapted to your curriculum. Teachers choose and coordinate subtopics.

Step 2 - Gather
Teachers guide students research and note-taking.

Step 3 - Build
Converting notes into their own words and creation of products.

Step 4 - Present
The students become the teachers as they 'show off' what they learned.

Sounds like something you can do, right? Don't worry, I will be there every 'step' of the way!

Some of the things you can do until the next visit:

1. Decide what topic your students will research. Check your standards and curriculum, choose a topic that you have to cover.
   
2. Try to come up with an essential question that will drive your project. If you can't come up with one, I will help you.

Looking forward to working with you!

Teachers and administrators, please 'comment' what your project expectations are! Just click on Comments to begin!

Karen

Past Projects

In the past, teachers have created some very interesting movies about all kinds of topics. Below are some of the projects done in the past. Check it out.

Producers in Training

Fifth Grade:
Ready, Set, Action! Ms. Hudson, Ms. Rivera and Mr. Napolitano's 5th grades classes in PS 140 learned to become producers. First they learned the 'elements' of a movie making.

Narration (voice telling the storyline)
Images (pictures, maps, photographs, illustrations, etc.)
Video (movie clips)
Transitions (effects between scenes or ideas)
Video Effects (effects on the video or image)
Title (unlike a book, titles in a movie refers to all types of writing, words or labels)

Then each group created a checklist of good things they should be aware of when making the movie. For next week, the students will finish planning their storyboard.

Second Grade: Ms. Smith's students are learning to use PowerPoint to capture their memoirs. They learned how to open PowerPoint, write a title and their name. They also saved their work. They did a great job sharing laptops.

Ms. Palacios students learned how to use Paint to illustrate science concepts. They will be creating short brief movies on Plants.

For next week, the second grades will continue planning their movies and slideshows.

Planning the Projects...

Today's session centered around brainstorming what topics we could create a project on. They learned about the main topic and suggested different possible subtopics they were interested in.

Teachers will divide students into working groups. Students will choose the topics that they will develop into a movie.

Here are some the projects in progress:

Ms. Palacios Class
Plant Life Cycle
What Plants Need to Survive
Parts of Plants
Functions of a Plant
Plants and the Seasons
How Plants Reproduce

Ms. Rivera's Class
Neighborhoods and Diversity
Contributions of Immigrants
Famous Immigrants
Countries of Immigrants Ellis Island and the Immigrant Experience
Reasons the Immigrants Came to the US

More to Come: Ms. Hudson's Girls and Mr. Napolitano's boys...projects