Hello Everyone,

It has been a long time since we have communicated with you. I don't

want you to think that we have stopped working on the project. In fact

we at Grade 5 have taken this project and have expanded on it.It is no

more a "Math" project, but it has become an inter-curricula project

involving "Languages," "Social Studies" as

well as "Math."

After writing the "interviews," the students were given the choice of

several subjects to prepare a questionnaire and survey. Our school in

general has chosen "The Child" as the basis for its projects. To that

effect the choices the children were given were centered about "The

Child." They chose "Orphanages" as their

subject, as this is a subject that is very important here in Lebanon,

particularly as a result of the war.

As a first step, the students watched the movie, "Oliver Twist." In

their language classes, they are currently working on writing a "Movie

Review" with their English teacher Mrs. Claire Chalhoub.

At the same time, in Social Studies, the students have been trying to

search the net looking for information about orphanages in general. The

students were given the freedom to try searching the net alone at first.

Next, we gave them addresses to some sites with appropriate informati

on. In order to help them, we gave the

students a set of questions to try to answer.

The next step would be for them to try to find some sites about

orphanages in Lebanon, and then try to compare them to orphanages all

over the world.

The purpose for the previous research was to have the children really

think about orphanages, what actually takes place in an orphanage, who

lives there, etc... This will then help them develop and prepare the

questionnaire. This they will do partly on their own, and partly with

the help of the Social Studies teacher, Miss

Noh Saga, as well as me.

As it will be hard to go personally to each orphanage or to most of

them, I have decided to take the students to visit at least one

orphanage. We will then email or fax the questionnaire to other

orphanages.

Once the survey is done, the students will start working on compiling

and organizing the data acquired, and finally analyzing the data

received in table form as well as charts.

Along side that, the students again, will be working on writing an

overall report, again with their English teacher, of what they have

done, how they achieved it, and their conclusion.

The students are all excited on working on this project. What's even

more interesting is that in certain classes, for example in Social

Studies, more students are involved than those who are actually with me

in Math, the ones who wrote the Math introductions. Still, all are

excited. In the final report, I will have the Math students introduce

their friends who helped with the survey.

As for Grade 7 students with Miss Rola Annan, unfortunately, they have

not had the time to sit and work on any of this project so far. Maybe

they will have a chance next year.

I will keep you posted.

______________________________________________

Gerda de Klerk

Center for Bilingual Education & Research

http://www.asu.edu/educ/cber <http://www.asu.edu/educ/cber> and

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

http://tikkun.ed.asu.edu/elps/ <http://tikkun.ed.asu.edu/elps/>

Arizona State University

Tel (W) 091-480-965-4346

Tel (H) 091-480-446-3672

gdk@asu.edu

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