Integration with Butterfly Eyes and other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman -Mosaic created by students with visiting artist for school courtyard.
One Book, One School, One Community is our favorite school wide collaboration. For this project, one book is selected for the entire student body to read and study. Because the book must serve kindergarteners and fifth graders equally, a picture book is selected whose subject can be researched and studied in depth. Past selections have included Martin’s Big Words, So You Want to Be President, When Marion Sang, Lou Gherig; The Luckiest Man, The Great Kapok Tree, Yesterday I had the Blues, Henry’s Freedom Box, and Listen to the Wind, and Eleanor; Quiet No More, and Butterfly Eyes; and Other Secrets of the Meadow. Each classroom teacher teaches the book in alignment with their curricular goals and objectives. The arts specialists work together to structure a culminating multi-media, multi-arts (theatre, dance, music, visual art, orchestra, and band) experience that will be created and performed by many students; the school community attends this culminating event. Additionally, we are often able to integrate a visiting artist into both the process and the production.
An important aspect of this project has been that every family at Powell receives a book to take home to include in their home library. By the end of the culminating performance, the books have taken on real meaning to the students, and children read the m over and over again. Often, it is one important book that transforms a child from a non-reader into a life-long reader.
An important aspect of this project has been that every family at Powell receives a book to take home to include in their home library. By the end of the culminating performance, the books have taken on real meaning to the students, and children read the m over and over again. Often, it is one important book that transforms a child from a non-reader into a life-long reader.