I have a group of students that needed a little bit of a challenge. The regular activities conducted in center time are a little mundane and they get through them so quickly. These students needed to have their minds stretched and they also needed something to accomplish independently until I was ready to meet with them in guided reading. So I created a reindeer research project to meet the needs of these students!
To get started, I gathered some informational books from Amazon. I also included some articles from a pack I had purchased from Kristen Smith. I wanted to make sure there was a variety of things they could get their hands on to gather information. And lastly, I included a finished version of the lap book and put it all in a cute little basket.
At my school, we are very blessed and have access to a variety of technology. So my students were able to gather additional findings through media.
Some of the activities I wanted to include were map skills…
Yes, we need to work on map skills.
Recording vocabulary…
Recording facts and writing a matching opinion, discovering adaptations…
Discovering adaptations…
Drawing and labeling a caribou (this was my favorite)…
Recording caribou food…
and when they were all done, they wrote a summary of their findings and topped it off with a reindeer!
One of the girls called it “the finishing touch.”
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