Animal Encyclopaedia

Project created by K5 children as closure of the Unit "Animals in Danger of Extinction" by Verónica Müller and Debbie Singer

[debbieandvero-blog]

Teachers involved: K5 Olivos teachers Verónica Müller and Debbie Singer Level: K5 (age 5/6 year olds) Students involved: 19 students

Subject areas: Social Studies, Science, Personal and Social Development, Maths, Literacy 

Topic: “Animals in Danger of Extinction”

OBJECTIVE:

The objective was to create a final product for our unit of investigation, one which we would be able to share with others in a digital format so…

[debbieandvero-blog]

Teachers involved: K5 Olivos teachers Verónica Müller and Debbie Singer Level: K5 (age 5/6 year olds) Students involved: 19 students

Subject areas: Social Studies, Science, Personal and Social Development, Maths, Literacy 

Topic: “Animals in Danger of Extinction”

OBJECTIVE:

The objective was to create a final product for our unit of investigation, one which we would be able to share with others in a digital format so…

[debbieandvero-blog]

Teachers involved: K5 Olivos teachers Verónica Müller and Debbie Singer Level: K5 (age 5/6 year olds) Students involved: 19 students

Subject areas: Social Studies, Science, Personal and Social Development, Maths, Literacy 

Topic: "Animals in Danger of Extinction"

OBJECTIVE:

The objective was to create a final product for our unit of investigation, one which we would be able to share with others in a digital format so...

[debbieandvero-blog]

Animal Encyclopaedia

Teachers involved: K5 Olivos teachers Verónica Müller and Debbie Singer Level: K5 (age 5/6 year olds) Students involved: 19 students

OBJECTIVE:

The objective was to create a final product for our unit of investigation, one which we would be able to share with others in a digital format so that it would be visually attractive and accessible to all.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT:

foster observation and listening skills

use of maps and being able to place themselves in it establishing positions and spatial relationships

for them to get familiarized with democracy and our election system

initiate the children in public speaking,being able to recall important information and transmit it to others

bring the children closer to reading and writing skills in a significant context

get to know the alphabetic order and its uses

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT:

Our objective was to foster the ability to respect turns, to participate in group activities accepting differences in opinions. To actively listen to peers taking interest in the information they share. Personal commitment to a group objective: our individual actions may affect the overall result. Take pride in the results obtained.

PROJECT TRIGGER:

As a starting point for our unit “Animals in danger of extinction” we visited the Buenos Aires Zoo. 

Before going, we planned our itinerary by looking at the map in the Zoo's website. We looked at all the animals that we wanted to see and other important references such as restrooms and information desks. 

Maths (space):

After we came back from the Zoo, each child had their own map and had to mark on it the tour we did during our visit. First using their index finger and then a pencil. They had to remember which animals we had seen and in what order.

Social studies (democracy):

Our objective was for each child to choose either to put together a story book or an encyclopaedia as closure of the unit. To be democratic, and coinciding with national elections, we decided to make children vote what they would prefer to do. We talked about different kinds of votes (null vote, blank vote) and democracy . We set up a dark room in our House Centre and dramatized the situation. Children walked into the House Centre with their envelope and once they had chosen their ballot they put it in the ballot box Once everyone had finished we counted the ballots and the result was to put together an encyclopaedia.

Investigation: We recapped on all the animals to refresh what we had seen at the Zoo. Each child chose one animal to do their research on at home. Prior to the investigation we looked at different encyclopaedias and agreed on what specific information would be relevant to put in ours. We prepared a list of questions that each child took home as a guide to help them during their investigation.

Observation/ Creativity:

We asked each child to make a drawing of the animal they had chosen.

Public speaking and Oral skills (presentation):

As they brought the information they presented their research to the rest of the class one by one. Everyone did this, sharing interesting data.

Literacy (writing):

One by one they wrote the information that they remembered or found most important from their research into the Ipads so as to register it for our final product.

Decision making /Classifying:

We had to think and decide which was our criteria for the organization of the animals in the encyclopaedia. Different options came up such as sizes, eating habits, colours, in danger of extinction or not.

When asked how the children are organized in the class list they remembered that they are in alphabetical order, so the consensus was to apply that criteria to the class encyclopaedia.

With that decided we wrote down all the animals on the board in any order and started putting them into alphabetical order.

We finally put all the information together and the encyclopedia was ready.

The idea was to share this project with parents and for each child to have it at home look at and print it if they wished to.

We sent the link via email to all the parents, so they could enjoy it together… Take a look at it. We hope you like it!

http://www.bookemon.com/book_read_flip.php?book_id=321812&check=4a381afdf56e1491ca5b12ebd4a859da

http://www.bookemon.com/book_read.php?book_id=321812