Final Preperations- End of Ohio's Wild Animal Study

 Last week we finished up our Ohio's wild animal study.  The students worked hard to complete their animal habitats, sculptures, non-fiction books, and much more.  They also took pride in making our classroom look great for our open house.  They helped clean the tables, chairs, get their work set out, and organizing the classroom materials.  We practiced reading and sharing our work so we could have more confidence in sharing our work with our families and other friends around the school.  

Below you will see students adding details to their animals.  They used non-fiction books as resources.

  

The students who chose to study skunks, learned the characteristics from classroom books. Then they made the outlines for the pattern and compared their sculpture with the book photographs.

 

   The students chose to make their habitats resemble the winter, which is an important standard/topic that the students are required to learn about. 

 Students broke twigs into small pieces to help make the blue jay's nest.  We had to use hot glue in order for the twigs to stick, so we had to be very careful.  The students handed the materials to the teachers due to the glue being so hot.  Then they added eggs to the blue jay nest. 

We added bark from a dead tree to our skunk habitat to make it look like a log.  Students added leaves inside the skunks habitat. 

 The coyote group made a forest on one part of their habitat as well as a den at the other side.

 The squirrel group used glue to make a squirrel nest out of leaves and twigs.  We glued it inside a "tree" and added some of our squirrels to the nest.

 To prepare for our open house and presentations to other friends in the school, students practiced reading their books to themselves as well as their classmates. 

 Finally the students helped get our classroom prepared for a day of sharing.  Each student set out their books as well as non-fiction books about the animals they studied.  In the center of the tables you can see the students collaborative animal habitats that they created. 

Skunk Group

 Squirrel Group

 Coyote Group

 Blue Jay Group

 We are very proud of all the students.  They put a lot of work into their projects, which truly shows.  Take a look at the next post titled "Open House and Project Presentations." In it you will see pictures of the animal habitats that the students created, as well as photos of the students sharing their work.  

I hope everyone had an amazing holiday and hope everyone has a great New Year!  

Mrs. Julie Atkin

Ohio's Wild Animal Project Work and Non-Fiction Writing

It was a busy week trying to get caught up from our 2 snow days.  Students have been researching different wild animals that can be found in Ohio.  Each group has made a plan as to how they are going to share the information, as well as whom they are going to share their information.  

As part of their plans, each student molded clay to form the shape of the animal they are studying.  They will be painting them this coming week.   

 

 

 Take a look at some of the student's sculptures.

skunks

blue jay's

coyotes

 

Squirrels

When students were asked how they wanted to share the information they've learned, one suggestion was to write a book about the animals of which they are studying.   Consequently, we started writing non-fiction books during "Writing Workshop."  We looked through several pieces of non-fiction texts and began jotting down some of the elements that help make up a non-fiction text.  Here are some of the elements we have touched on thus far.  We will continue to add to this list this coming week. 

 

Below you can see a few photos of some of the students work.  You can see that the students have taken their time trying to make their illustrations "realistic."  We continue to work on adding spaces between our words, punctuation at the end of their sentences, spelling sight words correctly and much more.  It's amazing to see how much the students' writing has grown in just 4 short months. 

Notice the headings.

 

Students have added a "map" of Ohio.

Students are writing "facts" about Ohio's wild animals. 

Students were also asked who they wanted to share their information with, and they created a list.  Among the list includes fellow classmates, other classes throughout the school, and most of all their families.  Students will be sharing their information this Friday morning at our open house.  Please visit our classrooms "Ohio's Wild Animal Museum" open house before school this coming Friday. 

This week we also had a visitor, Mr. Garrabrant, who talked to us about what it means to be an engineer.  The students had some great questions. 

Lastly, as a classroom we have been earning seashells.  We have two small baskets, the first basket started with 29 small seashells (one for each child) and the other starts with zero.  As the days go on, as a class we earn one seashell at a time for great behavior, compliments for walking respectfully in the hallways, working hard in the classroom, etc...  Last week students earned the last of their 29 seashells, so as a reward they chose to watch the film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (since we had just finished reading the book) with a popcorn snack.   You can see in the bottom photo the students enjoying their popcorn, as the movie is playing on the Promethean Board!

We hope to see you at our "Ohio's Wild Animal Museum" open house this Friday morning from 8:15-9:00am.  Take care and have a fantastic week!

Mrs. Julie Atkin