Penguin Unit...the Portfolder!

Our penguin unit ends on a high note. Here are a couple photos of my son's final project, his Penguin Portfolder...

Inside view of the double Portfolder:

 View showing Portfolder open from the opposite side...front cover (with white background) and back cover (black background):

The Portfolder contains:

• photos taken throughout the unit along with captions describing the learning process.
• penguin acrostic poetry
• illustration depicting what a penguin looks like above and below water
• a penguin riddle (Guess Who? from Bridges, Math Learning Center-MLC)
• KWL (what do I know/want to know/learned) about penguins
• Antarctica "trip" journal
• map showing where various penguins live
• life cycle cards
• penguin fact book (MLC)
• clue cards for various penguins to sort (MLC)
• suitcase & passport from Antarctica journey (passport, MLC)
• water temperature experiment results (MLC)
• penguin height graph (MLC)
• comparison/contrast chart on various penguins
• descriptive bubbles in which my son describes the learning process for various projects

 We often include a booklist but didn't this time due to space issues.

Although the Portfolder doesn't completely reflect it, we also:

• took a "flight" to Antarctica
• played a penguin Mathwire game with our homemade penguin tokens
• read piles of penguin books, including Mr. Popper's Penguins, and watched several penguin/Antarctica movies
• played with penguins in our homemade penguin habitats
• reviewed the continents and oceans of the world
• "weighed and measured" penguins (MLC)

One additional resource we used in addition to penguin resources previously mentioned includes an excellent DVD, Life in the Freezer, a BBC Video production by David Attenborough.

More on Portfolders.

More on our penguin unit.

Presenting Geometry Portfolders! (Geometry Class #5, Fall 2010)

What a wonderful class you've been!!  Have a happy Thanksgiving!

My Little Farm-Days 1 & 2

We just started a new unit based on My Little Farm (Bridges Breakout).

Description: "Life on a small family farm provides the context for exploring place value, money, area and perimeter, mapping, and computation. In this 4-week unit, students create a paper model of a farm and learn about farm life and farm animals."

Yesterday we created a web of things we might find on a farm. "Farm bucks" were distributed and cut. Farm mapping began this morning; you can see the house/land and road...paid in cash today! Each day we'll be continuing to add to our farm layout.

We are creating a portfolder of our work, adding to it as we go... I'm using Draw Write Now, Book 1: On the Farm-Kids and Critters-Storybook Characters for assistance with drawing farm critters. The drawings shown on the portfolder cover were independently done by a 7yo, following directions from the book.

New vocabulary words, found in Charlotte's Web, are recorded on notecards with definitions and sentences. It's sticking! The word "glutton" was giggled over at dinner last night. :)

7yo student quote: "It's kinda like Farmtown on Facebook." (BTW, I do NOT play Farmtown!)