Vale students get busy with birds
Vale Elementary School, Oregon Writing Project unite to provide special session Thursday
By Brielle Kennington
Argus Observer
Monday, March 3, 2008 11:23 AM PST
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| Ukiah Language Arts teacher Norma Barber teaches Vale third-graders how to write a poem about birds. Barber first had the students make puppets of their favorite bird and then write a poem to describe the bird they chose. |
VALE — They nest in the trees, and fly in the breeze, some can sing you a song, with their beaks short and long.
Those facts, and many more, were topics during a day of writing for third-grade Vale students hosted by The Oregon Writing Project Thursday.
The Oregon Writing Project is a national non-profit organization which strives to develop effective teaching strategies to enhance student learning and performance through an emphasis on writing.
The lessons included various activities such as poems, puppets, story response, feather drawing and bird song recognition.
Though Vale Elementary always has a unit on birds, school officials chose birds as their theme and dedicated an entire day of learning to birds and writing and called it Bird Day.
The Oregon Writing Project started planning Bird Day back in October but third-grade Vale Elementary School teacher Betsy Sadowski said the intense planning began two weeks before the big day.
Most of the planning occurred via e-mail between six participating teachers from five different cities.
The entire third-grade class was able to participate, including a few lucky fourth-graders as well. All together, 65 Vale students learned about birds and different writing techniques.
Ukiah High School Language Arts Teacher Norma Barber said the Oregon Writing Project (OWP) chose birds as the theme because they provide a wide curricular opportunity.
“We don’t care how they learn as long as they get excited about it,” Barber said.
One of those opportunities included a bird song recognition activity. Though it did not include a writing portion, the lesson did provide a fun and interesting experience for the students.
United States Bureau of Land Management Wildlife Biologist Jon Sadowski put together the lesson for the students with sound clips and pictures of various birds students might find in Oregon.
Some included the Sage Grouse, Water Ouzel, Sage Brush Sparrow and Vesper Sparrow.
The students were also delighted to see Sadowski’s pet Monk Parakeet named Henry at the end of the presentation. The students also gained the opportunity to ask Sadowski questions regarding birds.
“It’s part of giving back to the community, and maybe I can trigger an interest,” Sadowski said.
Another activity the students participated in was a puppet making lesson. The students were asked to choose a bird they wanted their puppet to be.
The students then wrote a poem on the wings of the puppet describing the bird they chose. Barber taught the puppet lesson for Bird Day and gave examples of different words the children could use to describe their chosen bird.
“I hope that they understand that it’s fun to write,” Barber said.
Wallowa High School Language Arts Teacher Karen Lawrence taught another lesson on writing poems with birds as the topic. Lawrence’s activity enabled the students to write as many poems as they could come up with.
Some of the students may have gained some poem ideas from another activity taught by Nyssa Middle School Language Arts and Social Studies teacher Kristine Howard.
Howard’s lesson was on bird songs specifically. Students gathered around a laptop to listen to different sound clips from different birds. The students became excited as soon as a clip started and then got very quiet and still so they could hear the bird’s song playing through the speakers.
Third-grade Vale teacher Sally Harden’s activity also allowed students to get their creative juices flowing with her story response lesson.
Harden read the students a story about a bird and the students then wrote post cards back to the main character. Harden said some of the students really used their imaginations and came up with some great responses to the story.
One of the lessons focused on vocabulary and enhancing the students’ artistic abilities. Betsy Sadowski taught a feather drawing class using real feathers to identify different parts of the feather. Every student was then lent a real feather to draw. Sadowski encouraged the students to pay attention to the little details of the feathers and to use some of the techniques she illustrated at the beginning of the lesson.
All of the students were able to participate in every activity. The teachers said all the students enjoyed the lessons and they also said at least one student told them they liked their lesson the best.
Director of OWP for Eastern Oregon University Nancy Knowles said Vale Elementary School was chosen for the Bird Day because it voiced an interest in the project. Knowles said the OWP would be happy to host a similar event for other schools in the area. Along with Bird Day, the OWP also offers teachers the opportunity to participate in workshops during the summer. While participating in the workshops teachers can earn graduate credits, gain stipends and receive feedback and lesson ideas from other teachers. All of the teachers participating in Bird Day also are active in the OWP.
