Fantasy Fusion

Beacon Day Treatment is a K-12 public school designed specifically for emotionally impaired students. Sixty percent of our students receiving free and reduced lunches. Our students have a particularly hard time with building and maintaining relationships due to low self-esteem, anger problems, and difficulty handling frustration, in addition to academic issues. As the high school reading teacher, I continually try to balance their educational needs with their emotional needs. The Olympus and Tool Factory classroom grant will allow me to create that balance between strengthening the student's literacy and building relationships, while raising their self-esteem.

Two quarters every year my students are involved in the Reading Literacy Program designed by the kindergarten teacher and myself. The collaborative program involves the high school students reading to the younger students and mentoring them through leadership. The high school students spend several days with the kindergarteners and naturally are drawn to one student who they will take on as their "reading buddy". They then will spend two, 45-minute sessions a week with them, reading books together and supporting their reading efforts through guided reading.

With the help of your grant program, the high school students will create a fantasy/fairy tale book, with them and their reading buddy as the main characters. Using the Olympus digital cameras available, the older students will photograph the younger students and have pictures taken of them reading or playing together, then download the photos, and using Tool Factory Painter manipulate the photos into fairytale images. Students will then use the Tool Factory Word Processor/Storybook to create their story using elements of fantasy such as plot, characterization, conflict, imagery, moral, and fantasy. Once the books are created they will be given to the younger students as a gift.