THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310306
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 68 lines
Whoosh went the wind. Flying went the little plastic cups full of pumpkin seeds. Chasing them went the groaning students. More than once.
It was sunny, warm and not a little breezy Wednesday behind Nansemond Parkway Elementary School. But when you're searching for different, interesting, effective ways to teach first-graders - in this case, how to estimate and weigh objects, specifically pumpkin seeds - you pick up your pumpkins and you head for the outdoor basketball courts.
And you bring some help. A class of fifth-graders, say.
It's been that way here all school year. Every Wednesday afternoon, Stephanie J. Sardi's fifth-graders pair up one-on-one with their first-grade partners from Karen E. Thomason's class.
They've counted and graphed the different-color candies in a bag of M&Ms, confirming what everyone guessed, that brown is the most-common color, blue the least-common.
They've counted, classified and charted the various vehicles passing in front of the school - cars, buses, pickups, 18-wheelers - for a class on transportation.
They've cut apart pictures of fish and put the puzzles back together for a study on pets.
The younger children have someone older and wiser to help explain things to them. The older ones, by teaching, reinforce skills - measuring, graphing, whatever - for themselves. All gain lessons in cooperative learning and getting along with others, lifelong skills they'll need for school and work.
For Thomason, the first-grade teacher, it frees her to try different, more complex things with her class because she doesn't have to hover so closely around her students or constantly fetch them supplies.
``You can do a lot of creative things with math,'' she said.
``I think that's the most important thing: The kids are having fun learning. They don't even know they're learning.''
The fifth-graders, too, love the weekly sessions, Sardi said. ``It's more being the `teachers.' Instead of being told what to do, they get to be on the other side of it.''
For Derrantae R. Wilkins, 10, it's something else, too.
``The slimy stuff,'' he said with glee, his hands covered with slick, orange pumpkin innards. He was helping his cousin, 6-year-old Shawnda Elliott, pluck seeds and weigh them on a balance.
``We get a chance to get out of the classroom,'' said Terrell J. Knight, 12. ``Working with first-graders, it's pretty fun. . . . I thought it was going to be hard, because first-graders, they can be wild and stuff.''
Terrell's partner, Mitchell C. Fritzinger, 6, was more orange than wild, but he agreed the classes are fun. ``He rides my bus and stuff, and I know him well,'' he said of Terrell.
``It teaches them not to be afraid of big kids,'' said Sarahi Bravo, 10, working with Samuel A. Tobias, 7.
``He knows more than I thought he did,'' Amanda E. Sullivan, 10, said of her partner, pumpkin-encrusted Trevor E. Moyer, 6.
After cleaning up the messes and lining up the pumpkins on the court - they were to be painted today and the seeds planted Friday - the first-graders ran to the playground for a little recess time while the fifth-graders pulled out math workbooks to practice multiplication.
Thomason, a third-year teacher, got the idea for the partnership from one of her college courses. She and Sardi tried it a few times the past two years, liked it, and agreed to make it a full-time deal.
Sardi said many of the younger children come from single-parent homes, are only children or the oldest, and benefit in other ways than educationally.
``It's good to have an older person looking out for them, interested in what they're doing,'' Sardi said.
KEYWORDS: SUFFOLK SCHOOLS by CNB