

Once students had met with their research groups and and gathered all the books needed, I also gave them access to a Symbaloo which is just a bookmarking site that stores all your websites in one place. If you click the picture below, it will take you to our Symbaloo of trusted websites that contain lots of info on different animals. You can save the link and push it out in Google Classroom.






Once students gathered all of their research they decided as a team who would complete the final report for each subtopic. Students had to create some kind of presentation on Google Slides to prove their knowledge of their subtopic. They knew that these would be printed out and hung up in the room to serve as a Zoo Placard. They could add pictures and any other resource they found to be helpful.
When they finished, they had to have their presentation approved by each of their group members. Each group member had to read the report and fill out the peer review sheet. Students then went back and made any changes needed. Because I have set up a very encouraging climate in my classroom, students were grateful for the constructive criticism and did not get upset. Students just need to know that our friends are there to help us, not to make us feel bad.




This entire room transformation was inspired by Hope King at Elementary Shenanigans. She teaches at the Ron Clark Academy and is always “setting the state to engage!”
Here is a video our room from last year. This is a copy of my live periscope broadcast, so please excuse me talking to the people leaving live comments in the video! LOL! I promise, I am not talking to myself!
In the video I talk about a Creature Feature Freebie. It is no longer free as I added an editable version and included a research page and rubrics for you, but you can grab it here.
You can grab resources for this unit here.
This is great! I remember doing a similar project as a kid in the 80's, but this is so much more engaging. Thanks so much!
Desiree
Reading with Mrs. D