Sea Creature Experts: Our Research!

Hello family and friends!

As you may remember from our last blog, we are marine biologist this month! As scientists, we've been spending a lot of time in research. Last week we introduced the kids to a large number of sea creatures. We vaguely explored each creature together as a whole class. This week we wanted to make it more individualized. We wanted the kids to feel that they were real experts. We wanted them to go to their friends with questions about a sea creature and be able to get answers. We started by asking them which creature was their favorite. Which one did they want to research? Which one were they most curious about? Which one did they want to become an expert in? After selecting their creature of choice, we dove into our research.

To start our research we spent a lot of time in books. We had the books spread out and encouraged the kids to look through them and find pictures of their creature. Once they found a book that held information, we sat down one on one and read through the books. We asked questions and tried to find answers. If we couldn't find answers in our books, we turned to the internet. We sat down with the kids and put our questions into Google. We pulled up articles to read and explored pictures. We also wanted the kids to look at a short video of their creature to see it in action. After learning their picks, we found short 2-3 minute videos that gave a general explanation of the creature. Most of our research included: their living environment, what they ate, their behaviors, what parts of the world they lived in, and any other questions that the kids could think of. Between the books, articles, and videos, we discovered that we had learned a lot about our creatures! We were able to tell friends facts about our sea creatures! We were becoming experts!

As experts, we decided that we should share that information with others. We talked about the fact that marine biologist do research and when they make discoveries they share that knowledge with others. That's why we know so much about the world...someone discovered it and they shared it with us! To share our facts we thought it'd be best to write a book about our sea creature. We've written some fiction books throughout the year but never a non fiction. We started by talking through non fiction books with each child. We discussed the different parts of a book and their function. We discussed the difference between fiction and non fiction and why each was important. Each of our book consisted of 5 pages. We became the author and illustrator for each page. We were careful to fill the pages with correct information. If we couldn't remember something we learned, we dove back into our books and searched for answers. Our pages consisted of: the name of our creature, where they lived, what they ate, an interesting fact we discovered, and our favorite characteristic about our creature. I am in.love.with.these.books. Seriously. The attention to detail was amazing. They really got excited about being experts and they took it seriously. They carefully wrote their words and made sure to draw pictures to match their facts. They spent a lot of time working on their books. We didn't expect them to take up the majority of the week but they did. And that's ok! We were glad they got so involved. We'll be hanging them up in the hallway as we complete them so make sure to give them a look. Because of the time in research and book making, we'll extending our study into next week as well. We definitely want to make time for Pesach so when we exhaust sea creatures we'll transition into a Passover study.

I also wanted to take some time to tell you about our "creation station". I know most of you have already figured this out...judging from the large amount of tape and cardboard that has gone home with you the past couple of week :) Our creation station is a place for the kids to use their imagination to create pieces of artwork from recycled or left over items. We took this idea from Rabbi Meir and his "closet of possibilities". The kids are obsessed. We want the kids to have the freedom to make their projects as a process without feeling rushed. We have designated the space on top of our creation station shelf as our "in process" area. Any projects that are not finished for the day or are waiting to dry are put on the shelf to be finished the next day. If you have any cardboard, plastic, wood, etc at home that you are recycling, please feel free to bring it in! We're always looking for some new materials to get creative with!

Approaches to Learning:

Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.
Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.
Represent prior events and personal experiences in one or more ways.
Try to solve problems encountered in play.
Demonstrate an increasing ability to follow through with tasks and activities.

Social & Emotional:

Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following direction.
Participate in group life of class.
Demonstrate strategies to join play group with adult support.
Recognize effect on others of own behavior most of the time.
Manage transitions positively when told what to expect.

Language & Literacy:

Show interest in informational texts about familiar objects.
Retell one or town events from a story read aloud.
Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
Explore books independently.
Incorporate information from informational texts into play activities.
Begin to understand the relationship between oral language and written language.
use drawings, letters, or words to create narratives about people and things in their environment.

Mathematics: