November 19, 2024 –Tigers, giraffes, and lions filled fifth-grade teacher Rosalind Parker’s classroom at Olde Orchard Elementary School, transforming it into a vibrant safari-themed learning space. Parker received a $1,000 Teachers' Dream Grant to transform her classroom into real-world math teaching scenarios. The Teachers’ Dream Grant awards grants up to $5,000 to Columbus City School teachers to assist in improving teaching and learning at CCS.
“My project is doing a classroom transformation at the end of every quarter and using that quarter’s standards,” Parker said.
In their first-quarter lesson on volume, Rosalind Parker's fifth-grade students constructed paper zoo animals. Parker tasked each student with selecting their favorite zoo animal. From there, students used lessons learned on rectangular prisms and cubes to measure their animal’s volume. Once all the animals were constructed, the class calculated the collective volume to determine if all their animals could fit in a display, otherwise known as “the zoo.”
Student Aiela Vongsavath’s favorite animal is the elephant. For her, it was the obvious choice to assemble.
“It’s my favorite animal, and also, in my culture, we have a lot of elephants,” Vongsavath said, noting her family is Laotian.
Vongsavath said she was looking forward to applying her lessons on rectangular prisms, three-dimensional objects, and squares to determine the size of her elephant.
“We’re learning and we are also making stuff, so that makes it really fun,” Vongsavath said.
Student Marcus Collins's zoo trips inspired his animal selection. He chose a monkey. Like Vongsavath, he appreciates using what he has learned.
“We get to build something and then after that, we will get to learn,” Collins said.
