Our iEARN Elder's Project: Learning and Caring About Generations
This is a picture of one of our classmate's grandmother and great uncle when they were children listening to a story being read by their mother and our classmate's great grandmother. We read lots of books about family elders for this project.
Here are pictures of one of our classmates with her Grandma when her Grandma visited our class.
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Our
classmate's Grandma and Dad came to our classroom for our Elder's Project.
The Grandma told us about what it was like when she was six, seven and
eight years old.
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The
Grandma also told us about the many things she does now like doing Elder
Hostels, visiting Mexico, being an artist, and traveling to visit her
chidlren and grandchildren.
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Our
classmate said she likes to hug her grandma, play with her and be with
her. She said that she plays ball with her Grandma. She throws the ball
"softly" to her Grandma and her Grandma throws the ball "softly"
back...that's why they call their game "softball".
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We have collected and shared stories from our family elders about what it was like when they were six, seven, eight and nine years old. Here are pictures of our classmates reading their family elder stories with Washington State University students. When we read our Elder's Stories, we learned new words, new places in the world, and practiced reading with expression
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We shared our family elder stories with our class. Click HERE to read our family elder stories!
We are sharing our Elder Stories with school friends in Seattle, Washington, who have also collected Elder's stories from their families.
We are communicating by email with senior citizens here in our community to share our school learning with them and they are sharing their life stories with us.
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Writing
and Sending Email to Senior Citizens
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Here is our email that we shared with a senior citizens at the Latah Health Services in Moscow, Idaho.
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Email Message To: Latah Health Services Senior Citizens From: Sunnyside School First and Second Graders Dear Friends at Latah Health Services, We are six, seven, eight and nine year old kids at Sunnyside Elementary School in Pullman, Washington. We are learning about family elders and family generations. We have collected stories from our family elders about what they did when they were six, seven, eight or nine years old. We learned about you from the newspaper! We learned that you have email! Could you send us email about what you did when you were six, seven, eight, or nine years old? Where did you live then? What were your favorite things to do then? Did you like climbing trees then? What kind of trees did you climb? Did you have a fruit tree when you were a child? Did you have a pet? A dog or a cat or a bird or a horse or a rabbit? Did you live on a farm? Did you like school? What did you do when you were in school? How did you learn in school? Who is your family and how many generations of your family do you have now? We learn in school using computers! We learn to use keyboards so we can be good writers. We use our computers to make websites to help children learn. You can see our website at http://www.psd267.wednet.edu/~kfranz We use our computer to send email around the world. Today, we are sending email to our school friends in Novosibirsk, Russia. We got a package of artwork and writing from them. They drew pictures and stories about what they care about. We have sent and envelope of our artwork and writing about caring. What do you care about? We use our computers to make video tapes. We are making a video tape about the pond at Sunnyside Park. We make video tapes of our classmates reading books! We use our computers to write nice things to other people like you. From Mrs. Rennebohm Franz's Class at Sunnyside Elementary School in Pullman Washington P.S. One of our classmates has parents who work at Latah Health Services. Their names are Mrs. Goff and Mr. Bates. Do you know them? Please send us email soon. Thank you. |
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To: Mrs. Rennebohm Franz's Class From: A Senior Citizen at Latah Helath Services Dear Class, I am ninety years old. I lived in Frankford, Indiana. I was an only child, only grandchild for 6 years - then had a cousin named Jack. Aunt Mina never married. Jack and I were very spoiled by her. Dad was an Interior Decorater, and Mom was a homemaker. I had lots of fun in school. I was very shy and did not like to recite anything in case I made a mistake and the other kids laughed at me. I liked school and my teachers. I was alwyas called the teacher's pet - I liked to help her. I always went in for sports. Basketball. We liked to play games like drop the hankie. My mother used to put me on the street car, and I would ride to see me grandparents and Aunt in Lebanon. They would take me to Indianapolis. We would see a picture show, vaudeville show, and then go out to a fancy dinner. I thought I was in heaven, and would be telling all my friends. I went on lots of vacations - we loved to go fishing. From, Your Senior Citizen Friend at Latah Health Services
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To: Our Senior Citizen Friend at Latah Health Services From: Mrs. Rennebohm Franz's Class Dear Senior Citizen Friend at Latah Health Services, Thank you for sending us an email message about when you were young. We were thinking about sharing our artwork about caring with you. You can see our caring artwork at our website. Go to: http://www.psd267.wednet.edu/~kfranz Take the link to Global Art Sense of Caring and then take the link to Sunnyside School to see our artwork. We hope you like the artwork. What do you care a lot about? Our class is studying caring about each other. We are excellently happy to know you! We know what a street car is. What is it like to ride on a street car? What were vaudeville shows like? We are having a talent show at our school. From, Mrs. Rennebohm Franz's Class at Sunnyside School
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We are reading books about family elders. We will publish our book reports on those books. Click HERE to learn about the books we have been reading. One of the books we read was about an elderly man who gave a young boy his violin so that the boy could learn to play this musical instrument. The book included a song. A Grandma of one of our classmates came to school to paly the song for us on the piano.
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Here is our classmate at the piano with her Grandma. Her Grandma and our teacher used to play in a piano trio together. Mrs. Rennebohm Franz played the cello, the Grandma played the piano and another friend played the violin. |
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The class listened carefully while our classmate's Grandma played the song. We liked the song! It has parts that sounded lonely and parts that sounded happy. It was fun to hear our classmate's Grandma play the piano for us!
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Our iEARN school friends from Latvia sent us artwork for our Global Art sense of Caring Project that showed caring for elders. Click HERE to see their artwork with elders.
Click HERE to learn about an iEARN Elders' Project in Canada!