Congratulations to all our 4th graders!

Students from Mrs. Keriotis and Mr. Finn’s classes composed individual Storm Stories set on their collaborative virtual worlds. Their stories take place on the fictional worlds they created while studying planetary science and biology. Profits from the sale of the book benefit the ongoing relief efforts for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

Click on the link to order the book online at LULU . Use the code MEMORIAL25 for 25% off.

Create a virtual world that orbits a star (or cluster of stars) in our night sky. That was the challenge that students in the 4th grade of Baden Academy Charter School worked on. They collaboratively created their virtual worlds with many of the features and characteristics of the planets and moons of our solar system. They researched the color and number of suns the planet would have, its moons, its diameter, length of day and length of year. We studied specific landforms on earth and they created unique mountains, valleys, lakes, plains and oceans in their worlds. We examined the water cycles of our planet and they imagined the weather patterns on their virtual worlds. Then Typhoon Haiyan hit.

The satellite images of the typhoon, the largest storm recorded to make landfall, came into the media lab alongside guarded yet nonetheless heart wrenching stories of the many deaths and many more homeless. The students composed individual Storm Stories set on their collaborative virtual worlds. Some included the animal life they were creating in the Alice 2, original creatures to inhabit the ecosystems of their virtual worlds.

Writing the stories was an immersion into creative writing techniques. Kids describing tornadoes watched videos of tornadoes then used words to describe them. Thesaurus.com was opened in another tab to help them get creative with their language. Google Docs allowed the teachers to help them with capitalization cues, punctuation and some sentence structure. Some students logged in at home and continued to write and revise afterschool with parents help at home. Students explored spell check and copy and paste functions and read aloud their pieces to classmates to check for readability. Unanimously, it was decided to donate any profits made from this anthology to the American Red Cross and their relief efforts to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. We hope you enjoy the kids creativity and imaginations!