Paper Crane Project

Dear Class,

Having taught Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in the past, I had a feeling that some of you were going to be interested in continuing to make origami cranes after we finished the book. I didn’t really expect the magnitude of having paper cranes cover our classroom. Look around the room this afternoon. Isn’t it amazing to see what you have accomplished?

In the older grades, teachers sometimes assign a year-end or final project. We didn’t do that—but you did. You created the project and assigned yourselves to complete it. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to culminate the school year.

Did any of you pick up on the deeper meaning when I asked, “Isn’t it amazing to see what you have accomplished?” What you did was so much more than make paper cranes to hang in a classroom. Your parents and teachers want so much for you—to see you grow in so many ways. I am not sure if you remember the fall goal-setting conference we had with your families. Yes, all of us wanted to see you excel in reading, writing, and math. But do you know what? Many of your families also shared goals such as learning perseverance, learning how to deal with conflicts, learning how to make more friends, finding ways to increase your confidence. We worked hard in all of the subject areas (reading, writing, math, social studies, science) this year, but we were also working on a “hidden curriculum” (that is a fancy word that teachers sometimes like to use).

Our lessons in this “hidden curriculum” were practiced in the mornings before school actually started. We taught these lessons during morning meetings and Friday class meetings. When you began this paper crane project, we saw how you were doing many of the lessons that we worked on throughout the school year. I want to share with you just a few of the observations I noticed over the last few weeks.

 

Thinking beyond yourself- Do you remember how this idea started? It was an indoor recess day, and a couple of you said, “Why don’t we make paper cranes for one of our classmates?” You have truly warmed my heart by the amount of time that you have invested for one of your friends. How has that made you feel to be able to do something so significant for another friend? Please remember that feeling always.

 

Student voice/student ideas-This project didn’t make it into the Big Idea Jar. It wasn’t the teachers’ idea. This was truly your project. You created the idea. You invested the time to do it. You recruited more materials when you needed them. You own this idea and project. We hope that you learned this year that your voice matters. You have excellent ideas to contribute. You can make a difference! You should be so proud of yourselves.

 

Perseverance– That is a fancy word, isn’t it? It means sticking with something even when it gets difficult. Making 1,000 paper cranes is very time consuming! Many of you continued to keep working on the paper cranes in the morning, at lunch, at recess, and at home over the duration of a few weeks. There are going to be many times in life when we have to push through on an activity, project, something happening in our life when we think that it would be easier to just give up. Giving up is an easy thing to do. But life often isn’t easy, and we have to find ways to push ourselves through those tough times. Look back and remember what your classmates did in these final weeks of school and think, “I can get through this too.”

 

Teamwork- There will be times when you need a little bit of extra help to get through some of those tough times. I hope that you realized how much your teachers, families, and classmates were here for you during the course of the year. Great things can be accomplished when people work together. Just look at our classroom! It certainly wouldn’t look this way if only one person was doing all the work.

 

Parental involvement– Speaking of teamwork, I hope you noticed and appreciated the parents that came in to help thread our paper cranes. Also, other family members supported you by sending in more origami paper—some of this paper arrived all the way from California! What is important for you to remember about this is that you have families that believe in you and support you. It has been such a great year to get to know you and your families.

 

Support and self confidence- It’s fair to say that some students really ran with this project while other students dabbled here and there. What I appreciated so much was how we all supported each other in various ways. Silent encouragement is so much more powerful than put-downs. I never heard anyone throughout this whole process say anything unkind about what others were doing. That is so important to share. We have to be so careful about our words, don’t we? Words can either build us up or tear us down. You have been building each other up throughout this whole project. It was so much fun to see you come in the morning and share the tiniest cranes that you have made, or cranes made from cardboard and other materials. You were anxious to share, and we were anxious to praise. For friends that had an interest in making cranes but didn’t know how to do it, you took the time to teach them. Thank you for taking that time to reach out to a friend.

As I write this letter, you have a teacher that is just beaming. I am so proud of what you accomplished this year—both academically and through the “hidden curriculum.” Yes, you aced this final project, but I’m not assigning a grade!!!! Aren’t many things more important than the grade? It seems more about the process of life-long learning. Thank you for a wonderful year!

 

Hugs,

Mrs. Titus