Mind Works Learning Circle Project Ideas
Elementary School (TEXT ONLY)
Middle School Learning Circle Projects (Text only)
High School Learning Circle Project
Ideas (Text only)
Students enjoy writing about food. Students
have often shared food poems and surveys of their favorite foods. Food
topics can be tied to cultural celebrations as students describe special
foods for special times. Or students might want to describe alternatives
to traditional birthday cake. Food science might be a fun way to get students
to make up science experiments or demonstrations using food. Humorous
recipes have also found there ways into the Mind Works Circle publication.
Wacky and Regional Recipes
Students enjoy creating unusual combinations of food.
For your Learning Circle project, you might want to challenge students
to compose some of these regional or wacky recipes:
Seasonal Delights: What are some of the
uncommon ways of eating the food that is grown locally during the season
when it is most plentiful? An example, might be Avocado Ice Cream or
Historical Figure Favorites: Find an historical figure or legend in
your community and create his or her favorite meal. For example what
was Robin Hood's idea of a great meal?
Sorcerer's Saucer: Create magical brews with ingredients
that are only found in your region. Perhaps a special mushroom, a
piece of moss, or an ear of corn is the critical ingredient.
Regional Wonders: Most historical societies collect
famous recipes and food from earlier periods. What is a special recipe
from your past?
Campout Fever: If you were to go sleep out under the stars in your
area, what food would you bring along?
If your students decide to sponsor one of these regional
or wacky recipes, they should send an example of the type(s) of recipes
they would like to receive. It is also a good idea to emphasis the deadline
for receiving the recipes. This way you will be sure to have enough
time to pick the best recipes and organize them according to the categories
you have selected.
When you are finished with the editing and layout, add
some pictures and your section of the Mind Works journal is complete!
Solving Sticky Problems
A story beginning could be written that results in
a dilemma. For example, a student could be involved in an incident with
another student, teacher, principal or parent; a student might overhear
a conversation or see actions of others that places him or her in a morally
difficult position; or groups of students might be involved in a conflict.
Students at each of the sites could be asked to write a solution to the
sticky situation. This might help students compare how their different
groups deal with similar problems.
******** A Problem Scenario ************
You find our your best friend is shoplifting things from
the grocery store. He (or she) made you promise not to
tell anyone. You don't want to get in trouble but you
also don't want to lose a friend or break a promise. What
do you do?
A humorous version of solving problems was sponsored by
a class in a previous Mind Works Learning Circle. This class posed a number
of "sticky problems" and asked the other students to suggest solutions
and offer their own lists of sticky problems. Here are some examples of
their "sticky" problems.
******* Solving Sticky Problems *********
How to get the bubble gum, that you were not allowed to
chew, out of your hair.
How to get out of playing with a younger brother or sister.
How to quickly get rid of thousands of small styrofoam balls that exploded
out of the pillows you weren't supposed to be jumping on.
How to get a raise in your allowance without having to
The problems and the solutions may be serious or silly.
The primary goal is to exercise creative problem-solving skills.
Students love to create new tools to solve today's
problems effortlessly. They will immediately think of bed-making, homework-writing,
or room-cleaning devices. Helping these creative minds find easier solutions
to today's problems will prepare them to invent tomorrow's tools. Here
is an example of the way a sponsoring class might introduce this Learning
********** INVENTIONS AROUND THE WORLD **************
How would you like to be a great inventor? Join in the fun
of creating a wonderful invention that would help you or your friends...or
make the world a better place to live. Or, if you are studying a special
topic, you could create an invention that would help you out. For example,
if you're reading about the knights of old, you might want to create a
special word sharpener or a lubricant to keep armor quiet and well oiled.
If you are studying pioneers, you could invent a new design for covered
wagons to make traveling more comfortable, or a portable clothes washing
machine. Or perhaps you have an idea for an invention that would be helpful
to friends, parents or teachers.
Active imaginations create amazing inventions!
Here is how to prepare and send information about your
1) Have students work in teams using this format for their inventions.
Name of Invention:
Description of how it works:
Description of how it is made:
2) Send team inventions (or the best 5 student inventions)
to the other schools on the network
3) (Optional) Send pictures or graphics to go with the
4) (Alternative) Imagine that you wanted to sell your
invention to the students at the different schools. How would you
advertise it? What features would you highlight? What would be selling
points. How would they persuade others to buy their inventions.
Fictional Character Sketches
Characters in books, movies, television
or plays sometimes make a very strong impression on children. For this
project, students could be invited to share their favorite fictitious
person with others. Perhaps it will be someone who undergoes a major change
during the course of the story, movie, novel or TV show. Maybe it is someone
with definite personality traits, interesting ideas or particular values.
*************** Favorite Characters ******************
Did you see a movie or read a book about someone special?
This person might be just the person that you have been looking for.
What is this person like? Try to create as vivid a picture as you
can describing characteristics or behavior in rich detail so that
others will have a good visual image of the person you chose.
There are home pages on the Internet for many television
programs and movies. This might be a way to motivate reluctant readers
to explore an interest in a television character. Starting from what
a student knows well an be a great way to develop writing skills.
A network provides the opportunity not only
to share your students' writing with each other, but to actually compose
cooperatively. "Circle" or "Round Robin" stories are started in one classroom
and then added to by one or more classrooms until the story is completed.
Knowing that their stories will actually be worked on by students in distant
places is a great motivation for kids to do their best. The end result,
a product of collective creativity, is often a very unusual story. Because
this type of project depends on having teachers and students in other
locations follow a careful schedule, it is important to find out which
teachers in your Learning Circle will have the time to be involved in
the rotation of the stories. It does not need to involve all of the classes.
Sample Procedure For Writing Circle Stories
The sponsoring class decides who will be participating
and makes up a schedule like the one below. Each class will write one
part for each of the stories. Each class writes a beginning of a story
and sends it (through electronic mail) to the class who is to do the
middle section. When a class receives a first part from another classroom,
they write the middle and send both parts to the class who is to do
the end. That class finishes the story, and sends all three parts to
the sponsoring class. The sponsoring class evaluates and edits the whole
story for the Mind Works Circle publication.
Here is a rotation schedule and timeline for 5 classrooms
participating in circle stories:
Beginning Middle End
Send by March 18 Send by April 1 Send by April 15
Story 1 school #1 School #2 School #3
Story 2 School #2 School #3 School #4
Story 3 School #3 School #4 School #5
Story 4 School #4 School #5 School #1
Story 5 School #5 School #1 School #2
Send Beginning by March 18th
Send Middle by April 1st
Send End by April 15th
Schoolroom Strategies for Composing Circle Stories:
1. Have the whole class work as a group to compose their
part of the story.
2. Identify a pair of students to work on each of the
3. Identify a group of students (making sure some good
writers are in the group!) to be the authors for their part of each
of the circle stories. When the story arrives, the teacher can work
as the typist for the group of authors. The students work together brainstorming
ideas, discussing the plot and characters, and searching through the
Thesaurus for good word choices. The teacher's skill at editing text
makes it easier for students to reword things, change their minds, add
characters, or modify the plot. Teachers have commented on how this
third procedure provided them with an excellent teaching opportunity
to effectively instruct students on setting, plot, characterization,
and many other details involved in story composition.
There are many different forms of poetry
and topics for poems. A class could sponsor a project on a particular
form (cinquain, haiku, limerick) or topic suggestion (natural surroundings,
local wildlife, regional events, or special people. City poems are a good
way for students to share information about their communities. Composing
a city or school poem can be a good project for group composing. Topics
that celebrate cultural or regional diversity are particularly appropriate
to share on the network. This might include special school or holiday
celebrations, activities around an ocean, river or mountain, or places
to visit in your area. Choose one of the suggested topics that is likely
to be important to most of the students in your location and write it
on the blackboard.
Ask students to contribute colorful, active, descriptive
words and phrases. Ask them to close their eyes and imagine the experience.
What do they see, taste, hear, smell or feel? Work cooperatively as
a group to combine and sequence these impressions to create a first
draft of an unrhymed poem.
Print a copy of the draft for each student to read and
edit. Then the whole group can edit, with students offering suggestions
based on their notes.
This process helps all of the students see how a piece
of writing can be improved with more work. The final poem can be displayed
in the classroom with artwork and sent on the network to the other classes.
The sponsoring classroom might want to add pictures to go with the poems
they select for their section of the Mind Works Circle publication.
Painted Poetry Example
Swiftly through the blanket of a sky
Searching with its well trained eyes
Gliding gracefully through
The enchanted and brilliant sky.
By Megan Riel-Mehan, 6th Grade, Pacific View
Middle School Learning Circle Projects
High School Learning Circle Project
Ideas (Text only)
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