Journey North Whooping Crane Migration

Whooping Crane

Crane Activities Fall 2009:

•Celebrating Cranes
•Raising Funds for Operation Migration

Hartman's Crane Factory once again opened at Alexander Middle School in Nekoosa, Wisconsin. This town is near the cranes' summer training and nesting grounds. No wonder the kids are super excited about the cranes that live in their state! Here's a look at their wonderful classroom and community craniac activities for 2009.

This year (2009) the fourth graders raised $907.00 for Operation Migration. This is one of the 4 classes that worked on the fundraiser. Not all students participated, but the ones that are pictured did sell cranes.The kids sold paper cranes made in their "crane factory." They had a great time doing it! The photos below show their crane factory and other activites.

Congratulations, fourth graders! How did they do it? They ran their own Crane Folding Factory. Read on!

Once each year in autumn, Hartman's Crane Folding Factory opens. The kids fill out applications to apply for their jobs.

The kids folded 1168 origami cranes to sell. Including their "learning ones" their total reached 1258. That's a lot of crane folding!

They set production goals and work as a team to fold the most ever origami cranes in one day.

"Believe it or not," said Mrs. Hartman, "the kids made up their own system for making the process work. There are 1258 cranes in that mound."

The kids attached stickers to each crane's wings. The stickers stated that all proceeds from the fundraiser go to Operation Migration in support of the ultralight migration.

The kids earned paychecks for working in their crane-folding factory. Then they get to spend them in the fictitious town of "Craniacville." This is fun day also gives them many math lessons.

The kids go to the bank (run by 7th graders) cash their checks. First they spend on necessities. They visit the Housing Authority, Department of Transportation, and Food Services. After budgeting their money on needs, they can then go to the mall, travel agency, or donate to charities.

At one of the places, the kids get to donate their fictitious money to various organizations. Most of them choose Operation Migration. If they run out of money some ways to make money are selling items at e-bay, putting money in savings, or playing the stock market. "It is a blast and the kids learn more real life skills than you could imagine, says Mrs. Hartman.

The kids learned more about cranes on their field trip to the nearby International Crane Foundation. The kids really like the crowned-crane and wish their pictures could have been taken by the Whooping cranes but they never came close enough.

Working in groups, kids researched a species of crane. Then each group made a large crane using an 8-foot square of paper. Mrs. Hartman explains: "Each crane was named by the one we have adopted at ICF over the years. I believe that since 1996 we have adopted 11 different species of cranes. If you total the 16 cranes (we did the wattled crane twice to make groups work and since that is the species we adopted this year) with 8-foot wing spans, their total length was 128 feet. If you stacked them on top of each other they would be 56 feet tall, making the total project much larger in size. The cranes were then on display for parent-teacher conferences and loved them. They were later turned into our cranedeer for the parade float (see below).

This is Nekoosa's Hometown Christmas Parade. The fourth graders' annual parade float brings attention to the various species of cranes. On the float are some elves along with Santa Crane, his 8 not-so-tiny cranedeer, and Rudolph Crane.