"Picture This" Reading and Writing Collaboration Showcases Creativity of Middle School and Kindergarten Students
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It was hard to tell who was more giddy with excitement at Grenloch Terrace Early Childhood Center on March 8th – the five-year-old kindergarten students at the school or the 12-year-old visiting authors from Orchard Valley Middle School. Over the past several weeks, students in Maddy La Voe’s sixth-grade English classes at OVMS have collaborated with all 14 kindergarten classrooms at GTECC on a project brainstormed by La Voe and elementary interventionist Linda Wienckoski. “Picture This,” a reading and writing collaboration, had middle school students use FlipGrid technology as a learning tool to bring story concepts that were conceived and illustrated by the District’s youngest learners to life.
On March 8th, selected middle school authors and publishers had a chance to meet the class with whom they collaborated and share a video version of the book. The middle schoolers then were treated to an illustrated version of the story crafted by the kindergarten artists. The OVMS group left goody bags with Dr. Seuss-themed pencils, erasers and book marks in each classroom, along with sheets autographed by the visiting authors.
“Throughout the writing process, my students would connect with their kindergarten class,” La Voe said. “They asked them what they wanted the book to be about, and the kindergarten students gave them ideas. Each week, my students updated them and explained to them what drafting and revising and editing was. Once my students had their books completed, we had a blind vote and selected the top books to share with the GTECC students during this visit. We really hoped to build a connection between the schools and to give the middle school students a chance to take on a leadership and mentoring role. It was a great project to build community across the District.”
Many of the students were stepping back into the building for the first time since leaving there six years ago. Several students united with their former kindergarten teachers on the project.
One such reunion was between OVMS student Gabby Tereshko and teacher Katy Martin. Tereshko shared her book The King Who Won’t Try with Martin’s students, who helped develop the story and proudly shared their hard-copy illustrated version of the book.
“When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer, so I enjoyed being able to help these students, who are younger than me, to dream on and become what they want to be. I wanted to make a fun book so kids would be inspired to try,” Tereshko said.
“My kindergarten students loved this project and had so much fun doing it,” Mrs.Martin said. “It was a great experience for them, and it was great seeing Gabby again.”
“Our students loved getting the chance to illustrate a book that was written on their ideas,” said GTECC teacher Kimberlee Purcell, whose class contributed to the book Don’t’ Judge a Dog by His Fur. “They really enjoyed getting to meet the authors.”
OVMS student Andrew Schmidt shared his book, Marshall and Friends, with several classroom audiences.
“It was a lot of fun reading my book, and then I got to see their really cool illustrations,” Schmidt said. “I wanted the message of my book to teach kids that it is important always to be nice to everybody so no one feels left out.”
Mehasia Robinson’s book The Princess and The Witch was crafted from the ideas presented by Tom O’Brien’s class with a message “if your friends really care about you, you should care about them.”
“We wrote books based on the kindergarten kids’ ‘cute, little imaginations’,” Robinson said. “We let them create and illustrate them and let their minds run wild. It’s fun for me to write stuff for little kids to be creative and happy about. It touches my heart. And this place is awesome. I love it here.”
Orchard Valley Middle School sixth-grade student-authors posed for a photo with teachers Maddy La Voe and Linda Wienckoski before sharing out their books at Grenloch Terrace Early Childhood Center.
OVMS sixth-grader Gabby Tereshko posed with her former kindergarten teacher Katy Martin before sharing her book The King Who Won’t Try with the class.
Kindergarten teacher Angela Otto shares the book Dreaming Together that her students brainstormed with authors Kodie Malone and Olivia Poletis.