On Wednesday we had an open house at the school to wrap-up our astronomy study. The students shared their moon projects, we had our animoto videos playing, our collaborative art projects up and the students shared their inquiry projects.
The students had chosen a topic of interest to them in the area of astronomy...something they were still wondering about. The students could work by themselves, in pairs or triads and recorded their inquiry questions in their science notebooks. Most of the questions were researched with reference books or online sources.
The students could choose how they would represent what they had learned about their topic. Many chose some sort of model while others stuck to a more traditional writing and drawing format, including doing posters which we had just done for our moon projects. It made me realize that even though I give suggestions (powerpoint, dramatic presentation, song, imovie, etc) students at this age need to see examples and I need to work through some alternate formats for representing learning with them.
Something new we tried was using bakers' clay for the students' models. All you need is salt and flour and it so sturdy once it is baked and hard. So easy to paint too!
The students were so excited to share their projects with their parents and with other students in the school. Some of them are becoming experienced marketers and came up with some fun ideas to draw people to their displays...little quizzes, materials out to draw with, etc.
The students were beaming all afternoon and are already talking about our next open house!
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