Milton Elementary CAP students host staff and parent fall party

Fourth grade Cape Accelerated Program students at Milton Elementary School planned and hosted a party Oct. 31.

Teacher Tracey Keller presented the students with three options as a class project: plan a fall party, design a lemonade stand or plan a field trip to space. The students voted, and planning the party received the most votes. The project included utilizing a $200 pretend budget to design a fall party. The class had to develop invitations, create decorations and plan the menu. Students broke into small groups and began working on the invitation. Milton Principal Beth Conaway selected the winning invitation.

Under the direction of Cape’s Instructional Technology Specialist Lori Roe, the class incorporated technology into their projects by developing how-to videos on iPads in the iMovie app. In addition, the students utilized augmented reality with the app Aurasama. Small groups also used laptops to work on the Apple program Pages to write a summary of the projects and Apple program Numbers to graph the decorations budget as well as the overall budget. Students are blogging about their projects and showcasing their videos.

The project culminated with teams designing a storyboard, producing a video that peers recorded and the teams edited. In addition, each team designed and created a party decoration. The students celebrated by inviting staff and parents to see their hard work.

Keller says, “The students continuously impressed me with their ability to learn and use new technology very quickly. In addition, their final projects were well executed and each group had a unique approach to party planning. We strive to accomplish active learning such as this in our classrooms on a daily basis.”