Second Grade Students - Cushing Community School
Class of 2005 - 2006
The Cushing Community School decided to incorporate a school wide, interdisciplinary theme on the environment. We choose to narrow the focus to our own school back yard. As a result our second grade students have been keeping an eye on the swamp / wooded area, just behind our classroom.
We have tried to visit this area every couple of weeks and observe and note any changes that were witnessed. We have also been keeping a photo journal of each visit. Some of these pictures and observations are available here.
Our librarian, Mrs. Dodd-Collins introduced the students to several books about the environment. Three of them were a particular hit; Over in the Garden by Jennifer Ward, Over in the Ocean: in a Coral Reef by Marianne Collins Berkes, and Over in the Meadow by John M Langstaff. After reading these books and checking out the illustrations in detail the students decided they could make a similar book about their school yard. We solicited the help of our art teacher Mrs. Percy to help with the illustrations. As a class, each student was assigned a number and then brainstormed something that could be found in our own school yard. The students then went to work, and using the books above as a model and inspiration, they wrote a poem about the thing they chose and also drew an illustration to match. The pages of our book, Over in our School Yard can be seen here.
We are currently working on incorporating the poetry into a song, using
the music found at the end of the book, Over in the Meadow.