FARMINGTON — How many workers are needed to build the new W.G. Mallett School? How many bricks will be used? How did they get the “blue stuff” to stick to the outside walls? How many machines are being used and what do they do?

Heady stuff for a group of 5- to 7-year-olds to be pondering.

But with the new 60,000-square-foot Mallett School going up in the backyard of the current 80-year-old school that will eventually be razed to make way for playing fields and a playground, students have a rare opportunity to watch it go up, from excavation to landscaping. It is scheduled to open September 2011.

“We started thinking of all the opportunities this presented, and we wanted to find a way to get kids working together to document the changes,” second-grade teacher Cindy Stevens said.

Stevens and kindergarten teacher Stacey Augustine started the New Mallett School Learning Buddy Project and blog last spring when ground was broken for the new building.

The project teams up a second-grader in Steven’s class with a kindergartner and together they contribute to an interactive website the teachers have created.

The classes get together once a week and share the school’s 30 laptops. In a recent session, the younger kids were asked to come up with a comment about what they have seen at the worksite.

The older kids were teaching them how to log on, what to write and finding the right keys on the keyboard.

“For my kids, it is helping them solidify their skills because they are the teachers,” Stevens said.

“I really like working with my buddy, and I like working on the computers,” second-grader Taegen Heath said as she helped her young buddy, Ivy Hutchinson, type in her observations.

When it was done, Ivy’s blog read: “I see a roof. I see a wall. I see a window.”

Another student entry reads: “I have seen the construction men put down the heat on the cement. It must be a hard job for the men. They have to use a bobcat to haul the dirt. When the kids sit on the floor the floor will be warm…I think that is pretty cool.”

The classes have also put online photos and videos they have taken of different stages of the work, shot on either short class walks to the site or from a window.

Since April, the site has had about 12,000 hits from as far away as New Zealand and South America. Stevens said 4,000 came in the first week the blog was up.

“We couldn’t believe it. Where are people hearing about us?” Stevens asked in amazement.

The blog project uses a variety of educational skills. Writing, technology, geography to locate where the hits have come from, and art.

Students created their own plans for the classrooms, lobby, gym, lunchroom, bathroom and other areas of the new building after looking at a set of blueprints designed by Stephen Blatt Architects.

The kids have also learned the basics of interviewing to prepare for meeting with a few grown-ups involved in the project.

Augustine said for kindergartners to be engaged for an hour while they talked with Chuck Pollack, site supervisor for H.E. Callahan Construction, was pretty amazing. Even Pollack said he was impressed.

“They had really good questions. I was surprised,” he said.

“We told the students we wanted them to ask questions for the other people who cannot be here,” Stevens said.

The classes have been able to use three iPod nanos to take photos and videos and record interviews. The devices were purchased by the Mallett PTA and from a district fund, while Stevens and Augustine bring in their personal equipment so there are enough to go around.

“We’re really doing this on a shoestring. We want these kids to feel that they don’t need a lot of equipment and that they can do this outside of school,” Stevens said.

All entries and comments are reviewed by the teachers before they are put online, and students are only identified by their initials. Stevens said teaching kids about Internet safety has been another facet of the project.

The popularity of the experiment took the teachers by surprise and is acting as an incentive for the kids.

“We didn’t realize how big this would be, and now the kids are so excited people are interacting with them. They realize people are listening to what they have to say and are responding. It is mind-boggling,” Augustine said.

“This project is becoming much more than a blog,” she said. “It is an adventure.”

To follow the blog and post comments for students, go to www.mtbluersd.org and click on the link on the home page under the New Mallett School Learning Buddy Project.