I'm blogging over at Classroom Tested Resources today! Check out my post on my next PBL Unit...National Treasures!

Project Based Learning in the Classroom

PBL in the Classroom

Today we sorted "polar animals" by Arctic and Antarctic polar animals.  After doing this is a class, we sorted pictures in groups, as well.  This chart will hang on our board during this unit as a reference for the students.

The focus of this project is on animal adaptations!  So today we read one of my favorite books, What If You Had Animal Feet!? by Sandra Markle.  If you haven't read this, you have to!  It's a  book of wonderings of what it would be like to have various animal feet!  

After reading, we of course had to make life size polar bear feet (12 inches) and complete the frame, "If I had polar bear feet, I_________".  

"If I had polar bear feet, I would jump in the water and catch fish."

"If I had polar bear feet, I would swim fast."

I love this cute display of their writing! 

 I'll be back tomorrow with some cute pictures of an integrated polar themed art lesson!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  So....I'm a little late, but this year has started off with a bang!  I feel like I haven't had a moment to collect my thoughts!

I enjoyed my time off during winter break and really unplugged!  It was the first time in a very long time that I truly didn't have my computer or phone with me!  It was wonderful!  But, I did miss my on-line friends ;-) and my little classroom kiddos!

So now back to school...

PBL in the classroom:

We started off this new year learning about the adaptations of polar animals!  We have had so much fun exploring and learning about these amazing animals that live in the harshest of environments.

Click the image above to browse Amazon, if you are so inclined!

I went just a little bit crazy on Amazon and bought these books!  But I really NEEDED them, right?  Since our focus is on adaptations, I needed to spruce up my collection!

After reading lots of books about polar bears, we started writing an informational paragraph as a class.  We decided on the main idea and added supporting details.   

We followed up this activity working on writing our own sentences!  My students need LOTS and LOTS of practice with writing conventions!  I created these non-fiction sentence quick fixes to supplement our polar theme!

You can download a free sample in the preview of my resource! 

I'll be back in a few days to share more polar animal fun!

In case you haven't heard, TpT is having a Sitewide Sale starting January 20th!  My entire store is on sale!  Be sure and use Promo Code Start16 at check out to save 28%!  

PBL Series - Bats

I love Project Based Learning!  PBL is awesome, engaging, messy...and takes on a life of it's own! We started our Bat Project waaaaaaaaay back in October!  We are just now wrapping things up!  But, ya know what? That's okay!  My students are totally engaged and have learned so much! This project went so well for my kiddos this year, that I thought I would share the steps we went through for this project in a series of blog posts.  

Getting Started...
We started off this project with a simple question...Are bats helpful or harmful?  We completed this chart by adding our names to the chart indicating our answer.

After this little graph, we integrated some math with graphing the results!  

You can download these freebies by clicking the picture above!  

I'll be back with the next in this series in a few days!  Enjoy the crazy days before winter break!