This sixth grade audio-visual music project began with students choosing a Shel Silverstein poem, one rich with visual and aural images. Students recorded their narrations into the Garageband program, then explored both Soundbible.com and the Garageband library to include music and sound ideas to enhance the poem’s mood and imagery. Students then created a video in iMovie, selecting appropriate visual images and incorporating their audio portion as the soundtrack. This lesson incorporated performing, improvising, composing, arranging, notating, listening, analyzing and describing music, as well as understanding music in relation to language and culture.

My thanks to Karin Gravina for her all her wisdom, help and patience during this project!
— Mrs. Renauld

Fernando and Eli – “Eating Soup”

elifernando from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Riley and Joey – “Homework Machine”

rileyjoey from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Mae, Jayde and Yacine – Pancakes, Pancakes”

yacinemaejayde from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Arlo and NJ – “Man Eating Plant”

arlonj from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Gaelen and Willa – “Two Boxes”

gaelenwilla from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Ian and Drey – “Transparent Tim”

iandrey from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Olivia and Alana – “How Many, How Much”

alanaolivia from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

During the winter months, sixth graders are invited to the computer lab on Mondays during recess to work on projects. This year we had three teams working on various technology initiatives. Below are their completed projects.

Rachel, Isabel and Spencer decided to create a stop motion video about a llama. They designed the characters and the setting, took about 100 photos, cropped the photos, added them to iMovie and finally sound. A fun project!

Stopmotion from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

The second team, Dante, Emilio, Max and Fernando, decided to create an animated game using MIT’s SCRATCH software. Each person created a portion of the game. Click on the image below to view the game.

The third team, Olivia, Alana, Jennie and Henry, decided to create a LEGO Mindstorms robot. The students quickly found out that building the robot is a time-consuming activity! Towards the end, they started programming the robot to do simple activities – push a ball through an arch and have the robot circle around a cylinder. All of which takes much trial and error!

 

 

For their book contract, Ms. Alyson Bull and Mr. Bill Stewart had students design cereal boxes to advertise the books they had read in their independent reading. They also gathered 3 collectible charms to represent the protagonist, conflict, and theme from the book. They presented their work in the form of a promotional TV advertisement that advertised both the cereal and the book. Enjoy!

Max, Noah, Isabel, Giselle, Jennie

Book Commercials1 from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Elijah, Emilio, Stella, Sophie, Gavin, Spencer

Book Commercials 2 from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Gaelen, Olivia, Alana, Willa, Riley, NJ, Arlo

Book Commercials 3 from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Emma, Henry, Fernando, Mateo, Joey

Book Commercials Part 4 from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Rachel, Ian, Alice, Yacine, Mae

Book Commercials Part 5 from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

Alissa Alteri Shea’s 1st Grade class performed a play based on Shelley Moore Thomas’s book, Good Night, Good Knight. The class was divided into 2 groups with each group performing the play. It was a fun performance to watch and all the students did extremely well! Bravo, Grade 1!

9:00 Performance

Good Night, Good Knight – Show 1 from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

9:45 Performance

Good Night, Good Knight – B from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

On Thursday, May 23, Vivian Kucinski’s fourth graders presented their play, The Tale of the Chinese Zodiac. Congratulations to everyone! It was a fabulous production!

Grade 4 Play from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

During March and April, Angela Regan’s second graders studied informational texts. They took a close look at the features of non-fiction and thought about the ways that authors “write to teach.” They then set to work writing books that were all about a topic they considered themselves to be an expert on. Take a look and you may learn something new from the 2nd grade authors at LES…

All About Reports from Karin Gravina on Vimeo.

As part of their fifth grade curriculum, the students learn about the highly organized civilizations that already existed in the Americas before Columbus. The students had to research and find an artifact or site from the Maya, Inca or Aztec culture. Once found they had to research the culture that created it, the approximate date the artifact or site was created, the materials that were used to make it, the geographical location, the purpose of the artifact or site and what is known about the artifact or site. The information was then uploaded to a four-dimensional storytelling site, Meograph, to create an interactive timeline.

Controls at the bottom left of the movie are available to pause and play the movie.