Innovative+Project

Module 7 - Innovative Project

I would like to do a project with my students in which we would collaborate with another Preschool classroom. Through the Pre-K Counts grant we have a partnership with the Galeton School District. They have a Pre-K Counts classroom as well. If that teacher and I create a project such as a Bug Unit (locating and identifying insects). Our individual classrooms could look for and identify bugs(using technology) in and around our community and the other classroom could do the same. Through the use of Wikispaces and voice thread we could post and share all of the information we gather about bugs. We could also share our methods of locating and identifying the insects and hopefully we would have unique information to share. I could also use epals and post this project in hopes that other Early Childhood classrooms could provide a way to elaborate on this project for curriculum integration. Materials: Containers and things to collect bugs magnifying glasses classroom books/materials about insects drawing paper/journals/colored pencils Geosafari Microscope/bug slides computer - for research and uploading information to wikispace project wikispace

Objectives:
 * Students will learn about bugs through hands-on exploration and research.
 * They will share what they learn through the collaboration project online.
 * They will present the information they have obtained to our class.
 * We will display our finding on a bulletin board area in our building.

Procedure:
 * 1) Students will locate bugs/insects in our playground/classroom area.
 * 2) They will use prior knowledge and fine motor skills to draw a picture of an insect.
 * 3) Using dictation the children will add information they have obtained about the bug to the drawing.
 * 4) They will research for infomation using the internet and or classroom books.
 * 5) We will then upload their individual finding to our class wikispace.
 * 6) Next we will add a voice thread to their page to allow them to describe what they have learned.
 * 7) Finally we will invite our partner classroom, families, and building teachers to our wikispace.

Assessment: I will create an online checklist using Google docs. spreadsheets to determine what each student has learned through this project.

NETS addressed: 1 a-d, 2 a-c, 3 a-d, 4 a-c, 5 a-b