Fourth-graders talk taters
with coastal classroom buddies
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — With their school and community located on an 11-mile peninsula in Washington County, first-graders in Renee Blackstone’s class at Jonesport Elementary School — despite their young age — are mini experts on lobstering.
By the same token, fourth-graders in Mary Graham’s class at Zippel Elementary School know a thing or two about potatoes, so it seemed like a good idea to have the two classes partner up and help teach each other about the vast differences between two of Maine’s most famous crops. It also helps that Graham is Blackstone’s mother.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
FOURTH-GRADERS in Mary Graham’s class at Zippel Elementary School performed a play Feb. 29 about potato farming in Aroostook County for first-graders in Renee Blackstone’s class at Jonesport Elementary School thanks to the help of Tandberg videoconferencing equipment. Narrating the play are, from left: Connor Albertson, Karlie Voisine, Taylor Hedrich, Annicka Benson, Elizabeth Nadeau and Bobbi Jo Rakes. Blackstone’s students can be seen on the television screen in the background. Her students are helping the fourth-graders learn about lobstering.
Though more than 180 miles apart, thanks to Tandberg videoconferencing equipment at both schools, the two classrooms have been meeting every Wednesday morning for about 30 minutes since January.
“I wanted to have my students write books about lobstering because we do a big project where we go down to the coast in May,” said Graham. “We’re hooked up to the Studentreasures program [a student publishing company] where the kids get a hardcover book published, and I thought it would be really neat if they could incorporate the coastal industry, as well other landmarks in Maine, as part of their books.
“At the time, we didn’t have a lobsterman because the man I’ve worked with for many years has retired, so I was thinking, ‘How are we going to find out about the ocean and lobstering?’” she said. “My daughter got a job as a first-grade teacher and I thought, ‘What better place than someone who lives on an island?’ Both schools have the Tandberg equipment, so we decided to connect and have our classrooms become buddies.”
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
KIMBLE WIGGINS, a fourth-grader in Mary Graham’s class at Zippel Elementary School, attaches a picture to a display board featuring a potato farm scene during a recent play performance for first-graders at Jonesport Elementary School. The students are sharing their respective knowledge on potato farming and lobstering.
The original plan was to have the students meet once a month, but the students enjoyed the experience so much that they pleaded for more “face time.”
“At our first meeting the students wore their name tags, and Renee and I did all the talking because the kids were just waving at each other. When we were all done, her class taught us a ‘brain break,’ which is something they love to do, and we taught them one of ours,” said Graham. “They had so much fun doing that that both groups said, ‘We ought to meet again next week,’ so we decided to do it every week. They’re starting to get more familiar with each other and talk back and forth rather than it be just the teachers. We’ve written stories for them; they’ve written stories for us. We talk about things that we’re doing in each classroom and then we wrote a play for them to teach them about Aroostook County farming.”
That play was performed Feb. 29 for the first-graders. To help illustrate different aspects of farming, Graham’s students would attach pictures to a display board that featured a potato farm scene.
“We got together as a class and wrote down what we thought should be in the play,” said fourth-grader Abigail Michaud. “We included things that we had already learned.”
“The play was a way to teach other people who don’t much about farming,” said student James Bell. “They know mostly about lobstering, so we were able to teach them about something that we know.”
The play included such facts that potato seeds are about one-half of a potato that has at least one eye or sprout on it, and are planted in rows about six inches apart and are covered with about three inches of soil.
The fourth-graders said they enjoy chatting, teaching and learning from their new friends.
“I like it because we can have a little fun and not feel weird; we might feel weird performing a song or play in front of older kids, but it’s OK with the first-graders,” said Michaud. “I get to have fun and not do work, and we also get to see them. It’s pretty cool to see someone that far away.”
Bell agreed.
“It makes it easier [using the videoconferencing equipment] so we can talk back and forth and don’t have to wait a few days to send out a letter and then wait a few days to get letters back,” he said. “It’s fun working with the younger kids. It makes you feel better that other people depend on you.”
To help teach Graham’s students about lobstering, Blackstone’s class is writing a song.
“With my class, I tell them that they’re writing for an audience and our audience is first grade, so we have to do something that’s appropriate for first grade not fourth,” said Graham. “What Renee is doing is working with her students at their level, but she’s pulling them a little higher than their level because they’re trying to teach fourth-graders. It’s a real ego boost for them to teach older kids.
“The one thing that I have found to be a real positive is that so many kids now are communicating through text messages and e-mails and they don’t get the body language or tone,” she said, “but by interacting with the videoconferencing system, we are learning to communicate in a face-to-face way even though we’re not face-to-face. It’s been working far better than we had hoped it would, and has sparked creativity in my kids that I did not know existed before we started this project.”
When Graham’s class visits the coast this spring, they plan to meet their classroom buddies for lunch in Ellsworth.
