First Grade Researchers Share Their Curiosity, Knowledge, and Creativity In Fun Fall Research Project

               
Over the last month, the first graders have been researching fall topics in the classroom and library.

At the end of the year in kindergarten they participated in an Iowa Animal Research Project and just loved being curious little researchers finding, learning, and creating.  We knew that they would be ready for another research project as first graders too.

Since they were focusing on fall, apples, and pumpkins in the classroom, we used PebbleGo and a variety of print and eBooks for our research in the library on the same topics.  

One thing I love about PebbleGo are the "Printouts" that are located on each page.  The image above shows the PebbleGo Printout from the Apple page.  I printed out the pages for apples, fall, and pumpkins to make a research packet for the first graders.  

As the first graders were researching the fall, I also asked the third graders from Mrs. Volk's class to help one day too.  

It was really fun to see them research and learning together. 

Our first grade friends were super excited to gather information in writing and pictures.  They love, love, love to research and discover new things.  This is one of the best things to see as the teacher librarian and as a teacher.  

We are wrapping up our fall research before Thanksgiving so we can move onto "Our Family Holiday Traditions" research project in December.  Today I created an activity that would give them an opportunity to pull all of this information together and share what they learned.  

I created this Google Doc above and printed it off for them to use as a place to summarize what they had learned.  First, we discussed finding main ideas.  We walked through several students packets and pulled out main ideas to put down as examples.  

They were excited to go through the three PebbleGo Printouts to find the information that they wanted to highlight.  

After they had the information filled out on their sheet, I had them go to Wordle which I put onto the First Grade Symbaloo webmix.

They have used Wordle to create word clouds since last year and always really enjoy using this website.   

The students put phrases and words from the information they collected into their Wordle.

They have fun picking their own font, colors, and layout within the Wordle.

Once they had their Wordle created, we helped them take a screen shot and upload them into a Padlet that I created before they came to the library.  I also created a link to the Padlet on their Symbaloo.  All they have to do is find that tile and go to the Padlet.

Once at the "Look What We Learned About The Fall, Apples, and Pumpkins" Padlet, they click on the wall and upload the image of their Wordle.  It is such a beautiful, easy way to bring all of their work together to be published and shared online.

You can see all of their Wordles at our Padlet here or at the top of this post.....Just scroll down in the box to view them all.

I can't wait for next month to see what the first graders do with their family holiday tradition projects.

To give our little ones the opportunities to be curious, embrace wonder, and share their excitement for learning is giving them the world.....it is giving them a voice.