The Wanderlust Teacher: animals

After finishing our animal research projects we turned to our favorite author and animal guru Steve Jenkins to extend our project a bit more.

We used his text Creature Features and focused on animal adaptations. Students created a question about their animal that readers might want to know and then answered it. We used layered paper like Jenkins does for the artwork.

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I love including art into the classroom throughout the disciplines because it allows kids who usually have a hard time being included freedom to express themselves and have something completed that gets to be hung up with their friends.

Last year, we used Steve Jenkins' Never Smile at a Money. After researched they analyzed their animal and came up with something readers would never want to do if they encountered that animal.

I am always trying to find ways to integrate multiple subjects into one project. Last year I was introduced to the book series Who Would Win which lends easily to a student based project. In each book the author chooses two animals to match up against and provides various facts about each. He does it as a narrative with pictures but then also adds in interesting fact bubbles throughout the book. Students can complete a checklist of who would win based on various comparisons--- height, fur, speed, etc. At the end he puts them in a final match up and students are able to see if their predictions are correct. They are engaged from the beginning!

As a class we decided we would create our very own who would win books.

#1 I started by reading a book to them. We noticed various non-fiction text features the author uses throughout the book and listed them. I then let the kids get into pairs and choose one of the other books to partner read. I gave them a sticky note.. on one side they completed the checklist and on the other they wrote what new features they noticed. We shared out and added the additions to our list.

#2 I introduced the kids to World Book online. Go to Kids---World of Animals. We talked about how it wouldn't make sense for me to compare a wasp to an elephant, so when choosing animals they would choose from similar species. In World Book they make it easy and have animal selections grouped by land mammals, water, reptiles, etc. The kids get to select the two animals to compare and it creates an easy format that shows different facts about each. The program has an easy print button that doesn't use up all of the ink.

#3 After students got their animals we came back and listed what we thought would be important to include in each book. I wanted to give them a framework, but all them AMPLE space for creativity. I modeled some of the pieces for the book and how to do the comparisons with math.

Who Would Win Book Pieces
1. A cover--- which we modeled after Steve Jenkins layered artwork. I made them the cover "Who Would Win" pieces and they did the rest.
2. An introduction posing a question of what would happen if these two animals came across each other.
3. THREE math comparing measurement using pictures AND words. (We were working on measurement in math so that's how I tied all of this in :))
4. At least one page of other facts and a map
4. Include interesting text features from the list--- tales of the tape, facts, etc.
5. A final battle
6. Checklist of their comparisons

I set out all of the papers and pieces and honestly let them have at it! It took about 2 math blocks and 1 literacy to get it all done. They were engaged THE ENTIRE time. I roamed around and helped as needed... but it was all completely independent. Clearly there were a few stragglers but for the majority that is all the time they needed.

I bound them with binding combs and then the kids had a book sharing party where they rotated around and read each other's books. They were so amazed with what the other kids had done and just loved them. I hung them in plastic zip lock bags outside in the hall as a display so that other kids/adults could read them.

Here are some snippets from their work