Looney99 Announcement - Where In the USA Is Looney Lobster Reading? - Inquiry Unlimited practitioner formerly sited at Boston KidWeb at Joseph Lee School, Boston, MA

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Where In the USA Is Looney Lobster Reading? (1999)

Our 5th grade class' Looney Lobsters (travel buddies) are preparing for their third year of meeting new friends throughout the United States. Are you interested in caring for one of them in your classroom for one school week during the 1998-1999 school year?

Recruitment begins August, 1998. Travel: late fall, 1998 - May, 1999

We will send a box containing a small, cuddly, stuffed Looney Lobster; a class photo-album; pre-written itinerary mailing labels; a single-use camera; for optional multi-media sharing: a VHS tape, an audio tape, and Mac and PC diskettes; a pouch of SASE envelopes to send us the front page of your local newspaper; a few lightweight artifacts from Boston, MA

After acceptance, pre-project participant responsibilities will include that you:
1. Mail a two-three minute maximum VHS recording of your class introducing us to your town, city, or state through artifacts, pictures, primary source documents. [mandatory]
2. Email the names of two-three regional literature picture book titles for quick read alouds which feature a local/state setting, or event and/or written by a local author/illustrator. [mandatory]
3. Complete and email the "mystery informational clue" template for participants to determine "Where In the USA Is Looney Lobster Reading?" (latitude; a nearby river; a local tourist attraction; an area historical event; a notable person; a state tourist attraction; your state bird) [mandatory]
4. Mail a photo or email a digital picture of your class for a participant booklet [mandatory]

Our class' pre-project responsibilities:
We will: receive the VHS tapes transferring all segments to one tape, and send the composite tape to each participant who included a SASE mailing pouch; compile the Mystery Clues into a mix-and-match online puzzle; create a regional literature booklist; create and mail a project participant photo booklet; create the itinerary; create the looney99 mailing list; create webpages related to the project.
Participant project responsibilities:
1. Let us know by email when Looney arrives. Let us know by email when you mail him to the next site.
2. While Looney is visiting your class, read aloud your suggested regional titles.
3. Email messages of Looney's daily experiences to our looney99 participant mailing list.
4. Using our looney99 mailing list, assist in supporting student-generated questions and discussions related to the regional literature.
5. With the single-use camera, take a close-up picture of your state's license plate and one other picture of your choice.
6. If possible, create a school-based webpage of Looney's local travels and experiences linked to our "Where In the USA is Looney Lobster Reading?" webpage. (optional)
7. View and, if possible, add your creations to the VHS tape and/or audio tape in Looney's box.
8. Optionally, share on diskette a multi-media computer-related project (a KidPix slideshow or HyperStudio stack) about your region, your class, or about Looney's visit to your site.
9. Remove one SASE from the travel box, placing in it the front page of your local newspaper and a response to "What I like/liked about this project; what could make the project better" and mail it to us.
10. Rewrap Looney; affix the pre-written mailing label; mail him to his next destination by Priority Mail, no later than Monday of the school week following your week. (There are two lobsters traveling. One is at a site and one is enroute to a site.)
11. Optionally, send us a few small, flat and/or three-dimensional items, for the regional museum exhibits we have been creating. We love to receive artifacts! Through the years, we have collected laminated leaves, shells, kinds of wheat, beanie babies representing various regions, regional wildlife on keychains, regional product labels, musical audio tapes of regional and cultural themes.

Project communication tools:

1. Visit the looney99 project webpage at http://lee.boston.k12.ma.us/d4/looney99/looney99.html
2. Telecommunicate with participants through our looney99 mailing list.
3. Refer to the "Where in the USA is Looney Lobster Reading? Class Photo Booklet"
4. Refer to the "Where in the USA is Looney Lobster Reading? " Location Mystery Clues.
5. Refer to the "Where in the USA is Looney Lobster Reading?" Regional Dialect VHS Cassette.

If you are interested in being considered for this project:

Contact: mduby@boston.k12.ma.us

For registration include: your full name, grade, email contact address, school name and mailing address, winter and spring vacation dates, last day of school.

I will immediately acknowledge receiving your message of interest and respond about your acceptance into the project within a few weeks.

Marjorie Duby, 5th grade, Joseph Lee School, Boston, MA 02124

Our original Looney root webpage was at: http://lee.boston.k12.ma.us/d4/trav/lroot.html
our current Looney Lobster
Our Class homepage was sited at http://lee.boston.k12.ma.us/d4/d4.html