The Dancer

by Dianny

If I say popsicle stick, what's the first word or image that comes to your head? If you are like me, well....it might be the image of a melting popsicle in your tongue! But that might not be necessarily the image during this time of the year; at least not outside. On the other hand, if you are more of an artistic and crafty person then you might be thinking of the millions of crafts a popsicle stick would inspired you to do.

This Friday was the usual arts and crafts Friday in ICS' after school program. The students went from table to table doing different activities and among them was one of my favorite, the popsicle sticks table. In that table they had fabric, markers, thread, googly eyes, and popsicle sticks (like you didn't know that by now). And with those materials they did what their imagination allowed them to do, from super heroes to flying brooms. All of their work was simply magnificent; I didn't know second graders could be as detailed and creative as they were. I loved it!!! But my all-time favorite was the dancer/cheerleader doll, although I'm still not sure if it is a dancer or a cheerleader (who am I fooling? It might not even be either) I loved it. The doll looked awesome, it had: red lipstick, a designer worthy outfit, pom poms, and even a beauty mark above the upper lip. That's just the beauty of a great imagination and the magic of a popsicle stick. I'm looking forward to seeing what else these students come up with during the arts and crafts time.

Co-Teaching Climate

by Angelica

Sixth grade science has been studying climate for the first half of the third quarter. With this topic, came many opportunities for co-teaching and experimental projects for the teachers and students. During this unit, students have had the opportunity to learn to forecast weather, and even give a daily forecast for the whole school to hear. This unit also brought along the opportunity for me to teach a lesson on the difference between the climate in Rhode Island and my home state of Texas. In the classroom that I work in, I have had the chance to co-teach with the teacher, but this was my first time planning and teaching my own lesson for all four science classes. It was great to create a PowerPoint with pictures and interesting facts for the students to understand the climate in Texas. The PowerPoint included facts about the semiarid climate, as well as details on the climate during the four seasons. My presentation went along great with our brief study of tornadoes. The students were able to experiment with tornado simulators at the end of the presentation.

Checkmate!

by Leah

Checkmate!

This session during after school at ICS I am offering a chess class for anyone interested in capturing a king or two. I decided to do chess after our school director gave me a couple books on teaching it to kids, and honestly, there’s so much more to teaching chess than I thought. Apparently learning chess benefits students in countless ways – language, mathematics, patience, attention, planning ahead, spatial skills, even social skills. Who knew chess was even more awesome than we all thought it was before?

My class is made up of all boys in K-5th grade; some of them came in knowing nothing about chess, and some were old pros (and very impressive ones at that!). We started class by introducing each piece and reviewing how to set up the board within ranks and files. Did you know that the pieces in chess (as well as their moves) are based on real-life characters? There’s a lot of tricks to learning chess, such as remembering that a pawn (kind of like a little soldier) attacks at the diagonal because in battle the soldiers would swipe their enemies at an angle rather than straight on. Similarly, the diagonal slant in the bishop’s hat or the horizontal and vertical cross in the rook’s top gives clues as to how those pieces move. These hints definitely help out when trying to remember the moves.

A challenge that I’ve had in this class is trying to engage the kindergarteners, who are particularly impulsive when they have a board full of pieces in front of them. Kindergarteners are old enough to understand the game (something I didn’t believe before researching more about chess), and I have a 6-year old who could probably beat me. However, there have been other students who struggle with the rules, so I have been pairing them up with older students to reinforce the strategies we learn during the lessons. I’m hoping to get the kindergarteners on board even more in the last few weeks of chess!

Teaching chess has opened my eyes this year to incorporating games into school in order to build social and academic skills. And really, who doesn’t love games? In the book I have been reading “Teaching Chess”, the author pushes for a chess curriculum in schools, and there’s a lot of research out there that suggests it will be beneficial. For now, I am glad to introduce a love of chess in after school in order to spread that enthusiasm around a bit more. I hope this old school game can make a comeback in the years to come!

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

by Nellie

This year Charter Corps held its first February Vacation camp, with the theme of space. All our members were assigned to different subject areas of study; art, science, math, and literacy. The camp was open to Highlander students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and they had a great time! I am used to working with middle school students for the past three years, so being asked to work with kindergartners and first graders was something completely new to me. I was really nervous and anxious about working with this age group for an hour and a half, and in addition to that I was doing art projects based on different themes throughout the week. On Monday we studied constellations and created our own using marshmallows and toothpicks, we also made our own galaxy of constellations using q-tips and white paint. Tuesday we learned about Earth and the seasons and how it connects to the Earth, we drew our favorite seasons and talked about what was different about each one. On Wednesday we studied the sun and the moon. The kids were able to make their own interpretation of the sun using red, and yellow tissue paper. We went over the phases of the moon and were able to use Oreos as a visual for the kids to understand better. Thursday we made a mobile with planets on it was well as UFOs made from Styrofoam balls and cds. Camp on Friday comprised of having a rocket launch party and countdown, and rocket launches led by the upper school students. To end the camp experience there was a mysterious space shuttle that crashed outside of the school and the students had to go around the school following clues, problem solving, and decoding messages to figure out who let an alien inside of the school. Several weeks later students have come up to me saying how much of a great time they had at space camp and they want to come back!

Edible Rocket Ships

by Naomi

During Space Camp my kindergartens and first graders made an Edible Rocket ship with carrots, bananas and apples. They were pretty excited about this activity, students were very creative making their rocket ship. At the end students had a delcious healthy snack.

Out of this World!

by Dianny

This past February the Charter Corps program ran a space camp for the week of February vacation for students at Highlander Charter School. The camp started at 8:45am to 3:30 pm and the curriculum was hands-on for grades K-8th. There were 4 classes: math, literature, science, and art for grades K-4th and an independent study for grades 5th through 8th. It was out of this world and the ultimate space camp experience! If you don't believe me, ask any of the 30 students who attended the Charter Corps' Space Camp.They would all agree that the week was full of fun learning and hands-on activities in all of their classes. It was an enthusiastic, fun, and positive environment for all, including the teachers! I had so much fun teaching my 2-4th science classes and assisting in the math classes, we did experiments everyday and the students were always eager to find out what the day's experiment would entailed.

At first, I was a little pessimist about the whole outcome of the week because I was coming to an unfamiliar environment with children whom I had never met before, I had heard stories of misbehavior for the previous year's camp, and the grade level I was initially teaching was changed a week before the camp started. I was in panic the first day; I was shaking and the palms of my hands were as cold as two blocks of ice but luckily for me (and the kids) as soon as got in front of my class all that panic and anxiety went out the window. I loved teaching science more than what I thought I would because I was able to incorporate literature, math, astronomy, physics, and chemistry, and do hands-on experiments. The kids made all this possible, students are the core of a teacher! There's no bad student; the one I thought would be the most antsiest, I made him my teacher's assistant. One day I had Mr. Julius explain the role of gravity on our planet's orbit around the sun. Guess what? He did an awesome job of explaining the concept and he had an outstanding performance and delivery. So now you know, if you have that antsy student give him/ her a job that would keep him/her busy and both of you happy!

Winterfest

by Nellie

The Charter Corps put on our first community service event of the year. We put on the 2nd annual Winterfest, this time it was held at West End Recreation Center in Providence and was open to anyone from the community. We advertised the event at our service sites, Highlander Charter School, Seque Institute for Learning, and International Charter School. Our guests were able to partake in arts and crafts such as making winter scarves, face painting, and snowflake making. We also had winter themed games such as real life Angry Birds, Twister, as well as a "snowball toss". The chefs of Charter Corps cooked up many different dishes that were free for everyone to enjoy. We had a special guest snowman/woman come and play with the kids, which was fun to watch. One of the highlights was that the Director of the West End said that he would love to work with us again!

Space Camp: Sun Poetry

by Itza

During February Space Camp I had my students right poems about the sun. I thought that it might be a bit difficult since my grades were kindergarten and first grade. To ease individual worry, as the kindergarteners cannot write a lot and first graders lack vocabulary, I had them write the poems in groups.

In all, four wonderful poems were written, one by the kindergarten class and three by the first grade. We were able to complete all these poems thanks to the awesome assistance of my fellow AmeriCorps member, Nellie. Together we were able to cultivate ours students' crazy and original ideas into poems they were proud of. The following are these poems:


1.
What if people tried to eat the sun?
Just to try the taste.
They want to eat it all themselves and never share again.
They use a rocketship to fly to space, landing safely on the sun.
Dig, dig, dig. Scoop, scoop, scoop.
Just to try the taste.
Then something happened,
They all turned into part of the sun! Forever!
Never be greedy or eat the sun.
-1st grade


2.
What if the sun was a monster?
It will eat people.
Step on them.
Smash them.
Throw poison ivy on them.
Sit on them.
Smack them with a pan.
Shoot them in the butt with fire.
What a mean monster it'd be.
-1st grade


3.
What if the sun was a monster?
Maybe it would breath fire,
that way it could warm it's butt.
Maybe it would throw fireballs,
that way it could warm other people's butts.
Maybe it would be made out of fire,
then it's butt would already be toasty.
-1st grade


4.
What if the sun was made up of animals?
It would probably look like a giant animal.
Milk and eggs would fall from the sky,
sometimes on your head.
I hope the animals don't wiggle too much
or they could land on your head.
I'm glad the sun doesn't come out at night
because I'm sure it would be a noisy sun.
Moo! Quack! Woof! Meow! Bak! Oink!
- Kindergarten

Retro Gaming - Nintendo Day

By Jill W.

During the whole third session of after school, my students in Retro Gaming were looking forward to the last class of the session. That day was the only day they asked about, and they asked every single week if that day was finally here. See, on the first day of our class, I had promised them that they would be able to try out some retro games on my old Nintendo 64, and they could not wait to try it out.

The class was centered around the idea of bringing together different grade levels to work in teams and try out a shared activity - in this case, old video games. We focused on pairing up students with compatible counterparts who were a very different age than themselves, and the pair would share a computer and play old, non-violent video games. This focus on fun digital activities that do not involve fighting, shooting, or exploding, and mixing the age groups would result, we hoped, in improved community atmosphere, improved social skills, and improved confidence among students.

Our final day of retro gaming came along, and I definitely brought in the N64 as well as a Nintendo Wii. The kids LOVED it! They paired up with their partners to lobby with me to let them go first on the game consoles. They picked out sweet games to play on the laptops while they waited for their turns, and they did and excellent job managing their time and sharing the games when we only had one controller for the N64. I was so proud of their progress from shy, resistant students who only talked quietly and politely to eachother when they had to, to a group of friends who communicated actual ideas, encouraged eachother when they failed, and applauded eachother when they succeeded. The kids earned their Nintendo day, and I was glad that I could reward them for their hard work.

My First Science Fair!

By Brandford

The Science Fair was an event that was unfamiliar to me. As a primary and secondary student I didn't receive the opportunity to participate nor did my school actually have a science fair. Being at Highlander and assisting students in their projects and be able to judge science projects was a tremendous privilege for me.

I watched students successfully struggle to plan and strategize for the best project possible. Students worked each day to construct ideas, from hypothesizing, to creating a project that can be proven through their experiment. I had the opportunity to monitor the 6th grade students progressively work to complete their projects as crunch time approached.

The 6th graders had some amazing projects from demonstrating corrosion with soda, using fruit as a battery source to make a light bloom. Students also displayed what happens when certain liquids are mixed with water and of course the traditional explosion of a volcano. Knowing a lot of the information from prior knowledge and being able to see it as a actually display and project was pretty intriguing.

The day of the science fair parents, teachers, students, and other community members came out to support those that were selected to be apart of the science fair night. The positive energy and excitement that filled the room was unbelievable. The education and awareness students were providing was great. Each viewer was impressed with the scientific work that the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders put together. This was truly a memorable moment for me being that it was my first time at a science fair, I enjoyed and appreciated the work these students did to educate us in a scientific manner.

Blessings in a Backpack

By Brandford

Every Thursday the sixth graders and myself conduct community service for the assistance of Highlander community and families. Our community service comes in the form of providing food, the program is called blessing in a Backpack. What is blessing in a back pack you ask? Blessing in a backpack is a program designed to feed underprivileged children, aiding in the battle against hunger to help feed the future of America. This program serves and supports 62,000 students in 437 schools nationally and international.

During the month of January, WPRI Channel 12 news came to Highlander Charter School to work with the sixth graders in producing a fundraiser video to further promote Blessings in a Backpack. All the students were excited about the opportunity not only to give back to their community but to be meet the people from WPRI. The students asked numerous of questions about the camera equipment and why the video was being made.

They led the representatives from WPRI in the process of packing a backpack. They first made sure that they had all the assigned bins with students backpacks from each classroom. After that they laid out all the food items ranging from apple sauce, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, cereal bars, fruit snacks, juice and more. Then the food is sorted and divided into each backpack. The backpacks are then placed into its respective bins and delivered back to each classroom.

Highlander Space Camp Artists

Our space-campers had a great time during February Vacation. Besides academic enrichment in Science, Math, and Literacy, they had a chance to participate in art for 1.5 hours each day of camp. This, of course, was a treat for students who do not normally have the chance to participate in art every day of the school week. 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders created comic strips, space creature puppets, and their own planets, which they then incorporated into a mural of their own galaxy. Their creativity and enthusiasm was impressive and an inspiration. Hopefully, it will help encourage an even larger group of students to attend camp during April vacation!

By: JM