Tag-teaming with the post from last week, while we were in NYC we had the opportunity to observe the fabulous work the teachers at the Deaf School in Brooklyn, NY have been doing with their students. I was blown away by the creativity and thoughtfulness these teachers had put into using stop-motion as a learning tool with their students. My day was a blast, packed end to end with classroom observations. It was one of those days where I remember just why I launched iCreate…

9am-10am: First stop, Jenna Vandiver’s first grade classroom, exploring the cycle of the moon and the sun over the course of the day. This project was completed as what we call a “whole class animation” where Ms. Vandiver facilitated the lesson on the SMART Board at the front of the room, with her class of 8 students gathered around, taking turns snapping pictures, moving props, reaching out to collectively build up a story showing the cycle of a day. Check out the result below… (note the careful touch of the darkened windows at night!)

10am-11am: Second stop, Marianna Giannelli’s math classroom, breaking down the process of counting through stop-motion. The project I witnessed involved addition and subtraction of money, with dollars and cents… but the example below is a fabulous example of what her students did last year with word problems in math. My favorite was the pumpkin one below!

Lunch: Roundtable with the teachers, Superintendent, and Curriculum Coordinator to discuss future applications and the sharing of their experiences with other deaf schools in the Northeast.

1pm-2pm: Missy Smith’s classroom withEcosystems! Students used the knowledge they have learned about animals in various ecosystems and dove into telling stories about them. Check out the underwater scene below, illustrating a proper example of the food chain.

2pm-3pm: Adina Schnall’s classroom with digital book reports of historical non-fiction. Each group had their own book — such as Pocahontas — and created both the fictional and real characters in illustrative ways, such as showing the fictional characters through clay and the nonfiction characters through photographs. Fabulous application bridging both literature and history!

It was an all around inspiring day for me, watching these students communicating through story using our software… Looking forward to continuing to support St. Francis and other deaf schools in the future!