Community Brochures by Second Graders

The following is a guest post from our library intern, Tisha Woo. Tisha is a graduate student in the library science program at UNC Chapel Hill. She has greatly enjoyed learning the ropes from Mrs. Husketh and spending time with books and students at Club!

 

The second graders in Mrs. Derby's class have been studying communities this month. After learning about the different kinds of communities there are, the students were asked to design one of their own based on the things they had learned and create a brochure with important and relevant information about their communities.

Before getting started on the brochures, we discussed what they had learned and  what someone might want to need to know if they wanted to visit or learn about their communities. It was a great opportunity to talk about what it means to write for a specific audience.

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Introducing the students to Printing Press

The students had never used the media center computers for project work before, so we needed to find a program that was simple and user-friendly. Thankfully, ReadWriteThink has plenty of great resources for educators, including their Student Interactives - online programs for creating and publishing their written work. I was able to create a template in ReadWriteThink's Printing Press program for the students. I also came up with a planning sheet on which they could design their communities.
 

The students then spent four days in the media center learning how to log in to the computers, access Printing Press on the Internet, and interact with the program. At the same time, they were working in pairs and learning how to share the work, make decisions together, and help each other out. They were impressively quick at getting comfortable with all this, and it was fun to see their communities taking shape, word by word, on the screens!

Before they printed out their brochures, we discussed what it means to edit our work. Why do we need to review what we've typed out? What are some important things we should be look for as we do so? The students were given a checklist to help them through this process.

 

Later, the students added drawings of people and places in their communities and a map to the brochure. Their finished products proudly hang in the second-grade hallway!