Maps and 8 Kinds of Smart- A Portfolio Celebration

This year I was blessed with the BEST student teacher I could have ever asked for.  She has worked incredibly hard throughout the past couple of months.  Miss Goulet has gone above and beyond her responsibilities and has exceeding all my expectations.  Although our first grade curriculum is jam packed, Miss Goulet found a way to integrate her unit of study, Maps, and involve the children in an inquiry project focusing on Multiple Intelligences.  She then coordinated a culminating activity by inviting the parents in to view the children's hard work and to see their 8 Kinds of Smart Portfolio.  Every parent and teacher who was able to see this celebration were completely amazed by all the hard work that had been accomplished over the past couple of months.  I could not be more proud that she was my student teacher, and I give her all the credit to creating such a wonderful learning environment.  The following pictures document all the kids hard work and demonstrates Miss Goulet's ability to plan and implement effective instruction.

 Here are some photos of her Map Unit.  We participated in the Flat Stanley project.  Each child wrote a letter to a family member or friend from another state, country, etc.  The families were to take Flat Stanley on adventures in their community and then send them back to us.  Miss Goulet set up a walking field trip and we were able to go tot he post office and personally send out our letters.  This is a picture of all the places Flat Stanley went.  He even traveled to Germany and back.  Next, Miss Goulet wanted to show the kids how close they lived to each other on a map of Shrewsbury.  Each blue sticky note represents the kids address.  Some of the comments the kids made were; "We all live so close", or "Why does so and so live over their?", and "We should have a play date, we live so close".  They made some great observations!

The next set of pictures show our Me On The Map project.  As you can see, the children were able to see where they were on the map, from their school to their planet!!  They had such a great time doing this.

Finally, here are some pictures of Miss Goulet's final inquiry project and the kids culminating "8 kinds of smarts" portfolio.  She first introduced each type of smart and they graphed their 3 favorite ways to learn.  Miss Goulet emphasized that we are all 8 kinds of smart, but we can choose our favorite ways to learn.

Enjoy the next couple of pictures which shows our Portfolio Celebration before all the parents came!