When Aimee Carletta, a family and consumer science teacher at Hahnville High School, brainstormed ideas for a project that would teach her students about early childhood development, she knew who to call.
Her daughter, Alexis Tamplain, is a first-grade teacher at Luling Elementary.
The Tiger Genius Buddy Project brought Hahnville High School students into Tamplain and Natalie Dunn’s first-grade classrooms to partner with a buddy and design and create a 3D character, or “genius.” The tiger is the mascot for both Hahnville High School and Luling Elementary.
“My goal was to have multifaceted lesson that encompassed not just my students, but engaged with younger children for the learning,” Carletta said. “Could I teach about early childhood development, story books, have discussions on that along with creating a 3D character and making a drawing come to life, which would include sewing on a machine, design, and hand stitching which are all in my curriculum?”
The first step of the project was for the first graders to read Amanda Noll’s “Hey, That’s My Monster,” a book about a young boy named Ethan who discovers the monster under his bed left his room to scare his sister, Emma, into staying in bed. Next, each first grader designed and colored a genius, a character they described in written biographies.
The high school students chose the design to create by reading the biographies that the first graders wrote about their genius, Carletta said.
“One student wrote that their genius liked ‘butterflies and playing with friends’ and one of my students connected with that and chose that project not knowing what it looked like,” Carletta said. “They had to connect with the biography in some way.”
Once the high school students received the drawings and biographies, they designed 3D crafts of the geniuses by machine stitching and hand stitching.
“I am proud of my students for taking on the challenge and hitting it out of the ballpark,” Carletta said. “The pictures speak for themselves.”
Carletta’s students visited Luling Elementary in late December to show their buddies the finished products. Carletta said about 60 students were involved in the project at the two schools
“The connections were very exciting to watch,” Carletta said. “[The elementary students] want to engage with the older students with natural curiosity and the older students want to give back and love to be the role model. One of my students found out her buddy was her cousin!”
Allanah Gordon, a senior at Hahnville High School, said she enjoyed making the younger kids happy by bringing their genius to life.
“When we first arrived at the school, I was nervous because younger kids can be shy meeting new people,” Gordon said. “But when he walked in the classroom it was all smiles and laughs when I found him. He was really happy because he didn’t know I was visiting, nor did he know I sewed what he had drawn.”
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