Children love animals.
They love researching and learning about animals. They love to tell us about what they know.
And they are lucky to have resources such as PebbleGo Animals from Capstone, Cantata Learning...
...and all kinds of wonderful songs and eBooks to bring these animals to them in the library, classroom and at home.
One of my favorite projects we did with the kindergarteners was the Iowa Animal Research Project each year.
Our little ones picked an Iowa animal; used books, eBooks and PebbleGo Animals to research and learn about their animals; and created amazing projects to show and teach others about their animals too.
You can read about the Iowa Animal Research Project here and on other posts on my blog.
Last week I saw a tweet from my friend Vanessa Rients @rients@vanessa on Twitter.
Her tweet and awesome idea made me think about the animal research children love to do and the possibility of this with a brand new series of books and songs from Cantata Learning....just like Vanessa said in her tweet and picture.
This brand new series from Cantata Learning is called Animal World...Animal Kingdom Boogie.
This series includes six titles....
...Amanda The Mammal....What Is A Mammal?
...Bird Band...What Is A Bird?
...Butterfly Floats...What Is An Insect?
...Catfish Clues...What Is A Fish?
...Reptile Race...What Is A Reptile?
...and Siren Salamander...What Is An Amphibian?
Like every Cantata Learning title, there is a song that goes along with it.
You will find the music in the back of the book on the CD and online where it can be streamed or downloaded.
There is also a QR code that goes along with each book. All they have to do is scan it with any QR Code Reader and the music will play from the Cantata Learning website.
Readers will find this on the back of each and inside in a couple different places, including....
...the spread with the lyrics and sheet music for the story.
As I was looking at Vanessa's tweet and reading through the six new Cantata books, I came to this page in Amanda the Mammal...What Is A Mammal.
Sweet little Amanda is sitting at the computer researching whales and dolphins. She comes to the conclusion they are not fish but are mammals just like her.
Now think about Vanessa's idea of pairing up PebbleGo with this book.
In PebbleGo Animals, students can go to Mammals where...
they can go to Dolphins and read about these fascinating sea mammals.
In each animal article within PebbleGo Animals, students can read about their Body, Habitat, Food, Life Cycle, Fun Facts and Related Articles.
At the bottom of the articles, there are three Media links...
...Video, a Sound Clip with the animal noise, Map of where the animal is found in the world.
They will feel like Amanda watching the video of these dolphins and...
...finding where they can be found on the map.
There is also three Print options including..
...Citation Information,
...Printable Items and...
...Print Activities, including...
...Share What You Know and...
Activity which students can label what they know.
They can do the same research using Siren Salamander...What Is An Amphibian? with...
...Salamanders from PebbleGo.
What kinds of birds will they find in Bird Band...What Is A Bird?
Once they find the penguins, pigeons, ostriches, and other birds in the Cantata Learning song and story they can...
...learn more about each in the Birds articles.
Butterfly Floats...What Is An Insect talks about butterflies and other insects too.
When they come across the honeybees in the song and story...
...ask them what they eat, how long they live and the habitat of the Honeybee. This will get them more interested in insects like never before.
I also love the idea of pulling in some of the older titles from Cantata Learning such as...
...From Caterpillar to Butterfly where they will explore and understand the lifecycle of the butterfly.
Oh...and don't forget to read Velma Gratch & The Way Cool Butterfly with these two Cantata Learning titles and PebbleGo!
Something else I want to talk about in this post is finding other nonfiction books to partner with Cantata Learning books and songs too.
Animal World: Animal Kingdom Boogie
This series, with beautiful photographs and simple text, answers all the questions your students might ask about the animal kingdom in a fun, engaging question and answer format.
These six books are so much fun and pair up perfectly with all six of the Cantata Learning titles from the Animal Kingdom Boogie series above.
This Pebble Plus series is available in print and eBook format within Capstone Interactive.
I love the eBooks too and what a perfect complement to your classroom as you learn about the animal kingdom together.
By putting a variety of amazing resources into the hands of your students, you will bring knowledge, curiosity, research and creativity to them like never before.
These experiences can include researching using PebbleGo, learning and singing new knowledge with Cantata Learning, and hooking them with other picture books and nonfiction.
And even face-to-face visits, field trips and Skype connections with very special people who can spark this passion for learning too.
When you tie all of these together to make connections for them and enrich the learning experience, you are creating lifelong learners who will take on learning armed with many wonderful things, words, ideas and love.
No comments:
Post a Comment