Our Kindergarteners Last Day....but they left their mark with "Our Iowa Animal Research Project" eBook!

         
Our kindergarteners last day is today.  

What a special year we all had with them...getting to know them, teaching them, laughing with them, reading with them, creating with them and loving them.

One of our favorite things we did with them this year was the Iowa Animal Research Projects.  The project where each of the little ones picked out an Iowa animal they were curious about and found even more than they already might have connected to when they started.

As you have read from several posts over the last 6 weeks, they have learned, collaborated and created several different ways throughout this project.  

They have researched, found information, wrote it down, created a model of their animal, presented to their classmates, drew their animal online using TuxPaint, and now the little ones are taking their knowledge of their Iowa animal to put into one last collaborative eBook using Wordle or ABCya! Word Cloud, TuxPaint, Google Presentation and FlipSnack.  

                           

And if you love these two pages from their flippable eBooks, just wait until you see the rest of the eBook.  It is so adorable....I just love it.  (The window at the top will take you to the entire eBook.) 

In the morning on Monday, the kindergarten teachers helped them use their Iowa Animal Research packets to write down a few things....their name, animal and at least three facts.  One of those facts had to include why their Iowa animal lives where it lives, which is the "Essential Question" we are focusing on through the project. 

In the afternoon, my little kindergarten friends came for library and technology time. Our fourth graders came to the library to buddy up with the kindergartners so they could help them finish the word cloud today.

                                      

After they got into partnerships, they went to Wordle or ABCya.com from the Symbaloo which holds all of the library, school and global resources we use in the library.  

The kindergarteners took the notecard with their information and started to type the main words to be included within the word cloud.  They could ask their 4th grade buddy for help if they needed it.

The next day, Miss McClintock's class came back when the third graders were in the library to help them.  They helped the kindergarteners create their illustrations using TuxPaint.  

It was so much fun seeing them work together to create something unique to their animal.  

As you can see this was a WONDERFUL way to wrap up the end of this research project.  By putting the kindergaren students with the third and fourth graders to work, they were able to also share with the older ones what they learned about their Iowa animal.  

We love how the eBook turned out and cannot wait to share it with the students and their families.

They should all be very proud of themselves.  It is quite an accomplishment.  

And it was so much fun learning, sharing, and caring with all of them.  I can't wait to see what they do next year in first grade.  

Below is the FlipSnack eBook with the word clouds created by all of the Van Meter kindergarteners.