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