Students have been working on a dinosaur research project for the past month, and today was the day they finally had the opportunity to share their hard work. The research process began in January when students chose a dinosaur that was unfamiliar to them. Using the website Pebblego, students browsed through dozens and dozens of potential choices that included herbivores, carnivores, sauropods, theropods, bird-like dinosaurs, and more. I created a special research folder for each student that I personalized once they chose their dinosaur.
Next, students created a pencil sketch of their dinosaur on their title page.
Then the research began! There were six questions the students used to guide their learning.
Students were encouraged to write using their best guess spelling. At this time in the year, our goal is to write using spaces between words and beginning capitalization with some ending punctuation.
As part of this collaborative unit, the kindergarten class learned about dinosaurs in each of their specialist classes. In Technology, for example, students drew and labeled their chosen dinosaur.
In art class, students used oil pastels to draw their dinosaur in their habitat.
The final piece was a clay sculpture!
We took all these collaborations and put them together using an app called Shadow Puppet. Here is the end result:
I am so proud of the students’ projects!
