Ecosystems & Animal Research Booklets

Animal Research in the UPPERGRADES? I have to admit, I have always underestimated the power of "Animal Research" in my 4th and 5th grade classrooms~I always thought it would be too basic for my students. Is it possible to take this typically lower-grades project to a higher level? I think so! Today I'm popping in to share my latest science research booklet, but WAIT...this booklet is MORE than just a booklet! It's also a project~based learning unit! I have been envisioning, processing, tweaking and adding to this booklet since November and finally uploaded it on Friday.

I had to create this set of research/notebook pages for myself because nothing I found when searching for “animal research projects” really fit my needs for upper elementary students and our curriculum. Utilizing NC standards from 4th grade and 5th grade, I focused on habitats, ecosystems, biomes, adaptations, and on supporting students as they develop an in-depth understanding of a specific organism {all were consumers}.

I designed my research booklet with lots of opportunities for students to sketch in response to their research and learning. I also defined key vocabulary on each page. This gave me the option to use some of the pages for lessons and science notebooking while others were specifically for my students' "Consumer Research" projects. The pages included provide students with ecosystems basics (physical and behavioral adaptations, abiotic factors (sunlight, soil, temperature, landforms), biotic factors (producer, consumer, decomposer), niche, food chains, etc) while also offering opportunities to extend the curriculum (symbiosis, human impact, environmental changes, etc).

What did I do with the research booklet?

I wanted my students to learn about the two main biomes in North Carolina—temperate deciduous forests and the coastal plain (including wetlands/estuaries). I printed the following pages on 1/2 sheets for students to research the temperate deciduous forest (for 2 days) and the coastal plain (another 2 days):

I printed these sheets twice (one set for Temperate Deciduous Forests and one for the Coastal Plain). If your curriculum focuses on world biomes, I have included similar sheets titled "Ecosystems" and "Biomes" so that you have choices. If I were teaching 5th grade this year, I would have students complete the biome sheets for multiple biomes. {Maybe strategically picking two that I would want them to compare after researching both}.I have also included “World Biomes” cover pages and a world map.

After students built background knowledge for our two main ecosystems (and some key vocabulary) we began our organism Research Projects. I created a list of key organisms in NC that students could choose from for their research project. Each student was required to choose a different organism to allow variety. Students received a “Consumer Research Booklet” that included:

• Cover page (you have many versions to choose from)
• Map (I have included a world map and NC Map)
• Habitat, Sweet Habitat
• Physical Adaptations
• Behavioral Adaptations
• Diet (Food Chain)
• Interactions with Other Organisms (Food Web)
• That’s Just “Niche”
• Interactions with Humans
• Relationships Between Organisms
• Ch-Ch-Changes (organism version)

For about two weeks of science/writing time, students used a list of websites that I provided to learn more about their organism. The booklet provided them with a guide for information they should seek out and a way to collect and organize that information, it made the connection to the science standards for our curriculum, and also included some extension topics for their research.
You have many options with the sheets included in this research booklet. I used some of the sheets during science lessons as they are perfect for capturing information in science notebooks; you can complete these sheets together, have students use websites to fill in, or have students work in partners. (You can't go wrong, if I do say so myself ;)

What happened next? Students used their booklets to create a research paper...and later, a google slideshow...and a WHOLE LOT MORE!!!

In this product, I have included “starter” materials for a possible project-based learning unit where students create a mobile museum based on their research booklets. I'm going to share all of our PROJECT BASED fun with you in my next post. Look for it on Thursday or download this baby now and get yo-self started on this engaging unit!

Happy February Valentine Heart Personalities Anyone?

Hi All,

This is a quick post as I have to leave the house in a few minutes, but I wanted to share that I uploaded my Valentine Personalities Vocabulary and Creative Writing Project like my Snowman and Pumpkin Personalities products. Students research a chosen personality trait in-depth (finding synonyms, antonyms, definitions, etc), complete a character questionnaire to explore their character and word in more detail and then plan a story, poem, blog post, etc. Last, students write their story and design their Valentine/Heart Character.

Here's a sneak peak:

 

Choose Trait: 

Explore Trait:

 Explore Character:

 Plan Story/Write Story:

 Bonus Activity: Design a Valentine Card from this Heart/Valentine Personality:

 Design the Valentine Character (thinking about facial expressions and features):

I like to use these seasonal activities to infuse my year with creative writing. At this point, my students are involved in research-based writing and they spent last quarter writing essays. It was nice to take a week to write "Snowman" stories. And, during Valentine's week, students will research their Valentine Personality trait and write a creative piece (it can be a poem, narrative, blog post from the character, a wanted ad,--anything to allow them to breathe creatively for a mini-writing project. 

Snowman Personalities
Pumpkin Personalities

Thanks for checking out this new product. It's cheap and ~EASY~ to implement if you are looking for something simple for V-Day. ~Put a little love in your <3~

Pumpkin Personalities Pictures AND Snowman Personalities!

 

My students' pumpkins turned out super cute! This post is super-duper late in sharing, but you can celebrate with pumpkins all FALL long, right? I shared a little bit about this vocabulary and creative writing project here.

This project provided us a nice break from essay writing (which we are cycling through all quarter). I had so much fun with my students' stories and word exploration, that I decided we are going to do the same project again with SNOWMAN PERSONALITIES!

Here's a peak at some of the materials:

We are going to make our 3D snowmen out of paper plates. If you want to go all out, you can get styrofoam balls in different sizes and have them decorate that way. For our pumpkin personalities projects, I think I rushed things a lot because I was trying to juggle our first essay cycle at the same time. Students did a lot of the work of writing their story for homework. For our snowman writing projects, I plan to set aside two weeks and focus more of our time on deeply understanding the word before they develop a story.

PS: If you want to do both, the 30 Words for each creative writing set are different, so your students will be exposed to new words!

Happy creativity in the classroom!

Creativity and Choice in Writers' Workshop

My principal has decided to focus on the "4 C's" this year. The 4 C's stand for Collaboration, Creativity, Communication, and Critical Thinking.

As I looked at this list of words, I thought, "Wow, it would be nice for creativity to be more important in our day, but...." I am a pretty literal person when it comes to making changes or setting goals. If you say we should increase creativity in the classroom, I see this huge goal of immediately trying to be more creative in every subject. However, you know as well as I do that creativity often gets pushed out of the classroom to focus on skills, mastery, content, etc. and to make sure we are moving along at a break-neck pace to hit all of our objectives. (All of that makes me feel like I sound like a bad teacher--I promise, I think I'm pretty awesome at this job, but let's be real.)

So, as I sat through our meeting, I thought, "How can I at least incorporate a little more creativity to make an effort towards this ambitious goal?" Writing stands out to me as the time of day where I could surely aim for more creativity (and choice, and student-centeredness). Writing is like art--a creative outlet and process--it's messy, it takes time, and it could definitely be more creative than we allow it to be when we teach students through genres all year. (I now feel like genre-based teaching in writing is what keeps me from allowing students to develop more creativity. Writer's have choices, not only in topic, but also in format, so why shouldn't my students? I'll get to more about this later:)

I came up with a scary idea, but now that I have launched it (about 3 days in), I am SOOOOOO excited about the potential I see for amazing writing and for inspiring students to see themselves as writers with worthwhile things to say.

What if students could choose their genre AND format for (almost) EVERY writing project? At my grade level, we have realized how super-awesome it is to have our reading and writing units connected, at least by a thread. You get so much bang for your buck with this approach (like we did last year with our Holocaust Book Clubs/Literature-Based Essays).

We really want our reading and writing to be highly connected. We are reading Wonder by RJ Palacio as our beginning of the year read aloud, so I started listing all of the ideas I could come up with for ways to write with Wonder as an umbrella. Then, I decided I needed a graphic organizer with categories to help me launch this with students. I came up with: questions, real-life connections, imagine, and reactions. I thought these categories would encompass just about every thought, genre, and topic we could come up with.

This is what we came up with when I introduced this format for "thinking" during a reading minilesson. As students provided ideas, I did my best to make sure I turned them into more generalized topics. (So, if someone said, "Auggie got made fun of and I have too," I turned it into "getting made fun of." (The only place this didn't work--and it's going to be okay--was in the IMAGINE category. I definitely wanted students to imagine re-writing and adding to the story with this category.) To lead the minilesson, we focused on one category at a time. I provided students with one example and then asked for their ideas.

Keep in mind that we are only on pg 80+ in the book and were able to come up with all of these ideas. After reading more of the story, I know students will have more ideas. (After today's lesson, I decided this would be our focus in writing for the quarter--SO EXCITING!)

On Friday, I moved the lessons into writer's workshop. I gave students the typed list of their ideas and asked them to highlight ones that really stood out to them as something they would be excited to "spend a little more time thinking about." Notice, I didn't say WRITING. I didn't want to focus them (or turn them off) just yet. I wanted them to be completely open to just identify topics they were interested in. Next, I had them put star their top topic...and it was time for writers' workshop to be over :)

Today, we created a poster listing "Ways Writers Can Choose to Write."

We then chose one idea from the brainstorming chart for Wonder and thought about all of the ways we could address that topic through writing.

I was BLOWN away at my students' ideas and creativity (and we only had 10 minutes to make this brainstorm). Remember my first chart (scroll to top :)? The one where I identified the types of writing each section would lend itself to? My students were able to totally see through that. (BTW, I never shared the kinds of writing I thought the category would lead too--I didn't want to limit their ideas).  I told them that with "Why is it challenging for most kids to accept someone who is different?" as the topic, most teachers would immediately choose essay as the format. They didn't include essay in their ideas at all! (Although, I know the skills of essay writing will come in handy if they choose to write a blog post or letter). I am totally getting buy-in for all the lessons I want to teach--making those lessons more necessary because students are CHOOSING their format and writing topic.

Why I love this new approach and why I think it will work is because I believe that almost all lessons we aim to teach in "writing class" can apply to all genres of writing. Nonfiction authors use narrative (I just wrote a blog post; I think I've also told you some story.). How to use commas, show-don't-tell, support your ideas with evidence and examples, use narrative to get your point across--I think I've got plenty of lessons to choose from that will be beneficial, no matter the type of writing students CHOOSE to work on.

CREATIVITY and CHOICE. What do you think? It feels great to slowly be chipping away at their list of when "WRITING is the WORST..." :)