TIPS Volume 3, No. 2
October, 2002

     Grade Level Key 
     = Elem,  = Middle
     = High, = Teachers

Squires Elementary School Primary teachers Sherry Howell, Ann Frith, Linda Jordan, and Marte Lee are exploring a PET (Planning for the Engagement of Technology) Project. The students are learning about Life Science activities dealing with insects. Groups of students have constructed terrariums, planted seeds and added insects. Students will make daily observations and record their findings. Each student will be assigned an animal to research. Based upon their research, students will design a brochure and incorporate transitional writing skills into the brochure. For more information about this project contact Sherry Howell.

[The complete PET project being used at Squires is available on line. More information about PET, and how it can help your classroom, is available on the PET home page. The PET coordinator is Kim Overstreet.] 

Submitted by Guyanne Vaughan

In August, Juanita Whitaker, a Stonewall Elementary teacher, began a year long unit focusing on butterfly habitats. Her fifth grade students have received this project enthusiastically. Mrs. Whitaker expresses, "the students are highly motivated about this unit and the projects that will accompany it." 

The idea for this unit began by integrating the 5th grade life science core content; plants, animals and their ecosystems. These areas will be integrated into a multidiscipline approach to teaching science along with reading, writing, math, social studies and technology. During this year long study the students will be involved in the study of habitats, scientific classification, butterfly gardening, plants and butterflies that are indigenous to Kentucky, as well as butterfly poetry, web scavenger hunts, and creating a web page for the world to view. The class has already begun to come up with numerous ideas for the web page that will be posted on Stonewall's website. They will include: 

• Butterflies that are native to Kentucky
• Host Plants and Nectar Plans 
• Life Cycle 
• How to start a butterfly garden 
• Teacher resources 
• Fun Links 
• Butterfly Poetry 
• Butterfly Projects 
• Quizzes 
• Web Scavenger Hunt

Together Dayna Lykins, Stonewall's district TRT, and Mrs. Whitaker have designed a timeline with a numerical rubric for grading purposes as well as a rubric that will be used to evaluate the final web page.