TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Having a whale of a good time

ADVERTISEMENT

By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR

cpastor@tampatrib.com

Published: April 29, 2009

NORTHDALE - Claywell Elementary first-graders could handle the life-sized krill and penguins, but when it came to the 100-foot-long blue whale, they had to head outside.

Children sketched out the whale's approximate length in chalk on the school sidewalk.

"I didn't know it would be that long," said 7-year-old Olivia Sewell.

First-grade students have gotten to know marine life, from the small to the super-sized, as they studied the word's oceans this year.

They transformed what they learned into what teachers called a walk-through aquarium, covering classroom walls and hallways with paper sponge-painted to look like water and decorated in coral, fish and mammals related to different regions.

They shared it with parents and the rest of the school last week.

Information stations displaying the students' research in their own words dotted the aquarium. Teachers Judy Shafer and Sharon Smith equipped them with books and Web sites to research but wanted to preserve the children's voices and spelling in the end result.

"Walrses and whales make their homes here," one child printed for the Arctic Ocean display board, "but are endangered because of the thinning polar ice."

"Arctic is the most smallest ocean of the 5 oceans," another student wrote.

Shafer and Smith had worked together last year on a rainforest unit and wanted to expand the approach this year.

They supplemented what they had with grants for books, supplies and paints. A Southwest Florida Water Management District grant paid for a plastic landscape model that demonstrated how rain can push pollutants into the public water supply. Publix donated reusable shopping bags for a lesson on how plastic bags can pollute the ocean.

Parents got involved, too. Talo McGee's father, Kenny, is a songwriter and came up with something for the students to sing that matched their theme. The two classes planned to perform it for their parents and the rest of the school.

"Let's talk about pollution / We need a real clear solution," they sang during a rehearsal, following along with 7-year-old Talo as she pointed to each word on an easel. "Let's start a revolution / Get rid of this pollution."

Despite the science foundation, the oceans unit reached into every part of the first-grade curriculum. Children practiced measuring skills by figuring out how big to make 2-inch drawings of krill, which they would later hang on the walls. They took on individual projects for homework and did research through books the teachers pulled for them in a research center.

Claywell does not have an art teacher, so the teachers took that on as well, helping the students draw polar bears, walruses, fish and dolphins. Shafer said the children honed writing skills by writing letters to their relatives asking them not to use plastic bags.

"I told them that they go in the water and get stuck on animals, and it's really bad for nature," said 7-year-old Michael Feldman, whose mother went to Publix and bought four reusable sacks.

Children showed their findings to parents in PowerPoint presentations, which helped their technological skills, as well as reading and fluency, as they recited what they learned.

"We loved it because it incorporates science and reading and writing and art all together," Smith said.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT