Spring has sprung a project!!!

Everyone loves a project! In the classroom, a project is defined as an in-depth study of a topic or theme.  Project work enriches younger children's painting and drawing, dramatic play, construction and more by relating them to life outside school. The project approach to learning is responsive to the different interests and life experiences of children.  

There are five structural features of the Project Approach to learning:

1. Discussions: Children share about and identify what they know, what they have learned, and what they still want to learn about a topic.

2. Fieldwork: Investigations on or off campus, interviews with people who have relations to the topic, explorations using all five senses to acquire new information through direct experience.

3. Representation: Drawing, writing, dramatic play, building models and so much more can represent children's understanding of their  experiences relating to the topic.

4. Investigation: Interviewing parents, family, friends and experts outside of school can answer questions the children have on the topic.  Looking at objects, noticing details, drawing, building, looking at books and online or using iPads are all ways of investigating a topic.

5. Display: During the course of the project, the children can work on different individually chosen activities collaboratively in small groups, to represent aspects of the study. Individual work will be displayed on bulletin boards and wall displays.  

(We are working from the book The Project Approach (book two), Managing Successful Projects, by Sylvia C. Chard, PhD)

Here is the beginning of our story about our topic: FLOWERS...chosen by the children during a discussion about the season of Spring.

Once the children and I talked about what they thought of when they heard the word "Spring", we were able to narrow the topics down to four areas that were mentioned several times throughout the web process: trees, insects, flowers and weather. Further discussion proved interest in and curiosity toward the topic of flowers was taking the lead.

Together, we webbed a KWL chart.  What the children already knew about flowers, want to know about flowers, and what they want to learn about flowers. We will continue to add to this web.

looking at books about flowers

exploring many different types of flowers from all over the world on the iPads

Let's make some flowers!

The children did "Prior Knowledge and Personal Experience" drawings about flowers, using  creative thought and different art mediums such as; beads, tissue paper, oil pastels, chalk, dotters, etc.

Here is what our first of many"story boards" looks like.   

We are on our way!  We would love for you to be part of our investigation! If you have knowledge of, interest in, or experience with flowers and would like to share with our class, please let me know.  Send me an email or call the ECC and we will enthusiastically bring you into our explorations and share experiences with you.

Other exciting explorations in Junior Kindergarten:

Last week we.....

explored the garden and found beautiful signs of life in caterpillars and Monarch butterflies. This week we will read about and watch the life cycle from the very beginning, a little white egg on a milkweed leaf.

As part of mini spring themes about insects, birds, and worms, we did a little shadow dancing with headbands, class-made puppets and light.  Our Exploratorium is slowly being transformed into a spring extravaganza, complete with a paper mache`tree, soil table, bird's nest and more.

 Another yearly sign of spring is that the Junior Kindergarteners visit the Kindergarteners for "Buddy Reading".  However, since last week was Reading Week in the Lower Division, we were lucky enough to get two great experiences with reading buddies.  One, was with Ms. O'Mullane's 2nd grade class where the 2nd grade children read for our class.  The second was where Ms. Conroy read to ours and her class as a whole, frequently stopping for Kindergarten and JK partners to turn and talk with each other about the story. Fantastic reading experiences!

This week the children will continue with project work, putting together their own alphabet book with drawings, dictations and inventive spelling, counting with and adding and subtracting objects, and so much more!

Happy Spring!!!