Under the Sea - Ocean Researchers

So, we've been learning all about ocean animals & my littles have become quite the researchers...it all started with a Donor's Choose grant:

"Nuts About Non-fiction" was funded for the purpose of getting ocean animal books to my Kinders - I chose Pebble & Pebble Plus books mostly (they have 2-3 lines of simple, decodable text for my kiddos to use for research reading & writing).

Prior to spring break, my kiddos perused the titles & made a choice on which animal they wanted to research.  I used Reagan Tunstall's Big Blue Ocean packet for the note to parents & the pages used for making each student's unique research book.  I like to give a quarterly home-school connected project (in 1st quarter it is All About Me bags, 2nd quarter it is Pumpkin Book Reports, 3rd quarter it is 100th counting projects, & this is 4th quarter's).  The project is made at home (I like to give 2-3 weeks notice, so parents have lots of time...this so happened to fall over our 2 week spring break & it was an ideal assignment for that non-school, down time).  The students receive an oral presentation grade each quarter, this time it was fun to see the "speaker" use the microphone and answer the 4-5 questions peers had about their research book or project.

Here is all their hard work:

I love how this unit is laid out...the Layers of the Ocean anchor chart & student grid, for recording it is perfect for categorizing and synthesizing new information!