Projects - Mrs. Raines' Class Website

Town of Portland Diorama Project

In our first social studies unit, we studied our town. We talked about the different services, goods, restaurants, and schools in our community. This led to our culminating activity, a diorama of one of the important buildings in our community. Click on the picture to the right to see a slideshow of the students' work.

Remarkable Readers

Listen to your child read! In this reading portfolio, the students will be able to periodically read part of a story on this page throughout the school year. The goal of this page is to document student growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Listen for student fluency (the ability to read phrases and sentences smoothly and quickly, while understanding them as expressions of complete ideas, from About.com) and expression (the feeling expressed as one reads).

Journey North's Tulip Garden Project

How are plants affected by climate and the seasons? In this large experiment students across the Northern Hemisphere track the growth of the same plant as the season changes from winter to spring. They discover how temperatures, sunlight, geographic location, and other variables influence plant growth — and the full array of seasonal changes that take place in the springtime. These observations set the stage for a better understanding of the impact of a changing climate. Click the Tulip to see our garden pictures. Click here to visit Journey North's Website.

The Monster Exchange Project

As per the website, "Monster Exchange is designed to encourage the development of reading and writing skills while integrating Internet technology into the classroom curriculum." We paired up with Mrs. Raines’ class. Each student designed an original picture of a monster. The students then wrote a description of the monster. The true challenge involved redrawing a picture as close to the original picture as possible using only the written description of the monster.

Click on the picture to go to our class page on the Monster Exchange website!

Our Flat Stanley Project - Spring 2009

In our class, we have read the story Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. This book is about a young boy named Stanley who is accidentally squished "as flat as a pancake" when a bulletin board falls on him. Stanley is very, very flat but otherwise fine. The story goes on to tell how Stanley discovers some real advantages to being flat. He can slide under doors, go down into sidewalk grates, and even fold himself up small enough to fit into an envelope and be mailed to California (from a city far away in the USA) for an exciting vacation.

To integrate social studies and learn about different places around the United States, we have made Flat Travelers to send to host families. Our Flat Travelers will be sent back to us with information about the area he/she traveled. Click here to see where our Flat Travelers have visited and interesting facts we learned. Just click on the push-pins on the map. Can you find your Flat Traveler?

The Student Who Cried Wolf!
written by Mrs. Raines' Class 2008-2009

Throughout the year, our school has assembly's celebrating good character traits. The framework for each assembly is based on basic values called the Six Pillars of Character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Each assembly focuses on a character trait. Each class has a chance to participate in the assembly by sharing something they have learned about that particular trait. During the month of April, the students studied what it meant to be trustworthy and honest. In doing so, we read the story The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf. The students decided that they wanted to write their own class story that paralleled this story. We used a website called Voice Thread to create our story. The students wrote the class story as a whole group, drew illustrations to go with the story, and then read the story with each illustration on Voice Thread. View our class book below. Can you figure out the authors' purpose?