George Washington Carver

Hi guys! Today I wanted to share more of our black history month studies. We learned all about George Washington Carver. My kids were amazed at his determination and his kindness. Here are some of the fun activities we did.

The boys put together a fun peanut butter jar that contained information about him

Looking through the book for answers to some of the questions

The boys wrote a paragraph about what they learned about this fascinating man

Directed drawing of George Washington Carver

They also put peanuts around him with character traits written on them 

Resources:
Peanut Butter Jar Foldable
Directed Drawing

Jane Goodall Biography Brochure

Hi guys! Happy Friday :). I hope you guys had a fun and productive week. One of my goals this year was to focus a lot on writing. Informational, biographies, narrative, etc. I am happy to say that we are accomplishing this goal. Today I wanted to share with you my sons Jane Goodall biography brochure report and art project. All resources are mentioned at the end of the post.

He really enjoyed learning all about her and her passion for animals. 

He gathered most of his information from this book and The Watcher which is more

detailed than Me...Jane. 

We also used QR codes for safe online research. 

Art Project:

I requested that I draw the chimp for him and I was okay with that. I made the outline and he added the details.Painted it and added texture. 

He cut out a tree trunk from brown construction paper and added detail using

black chalk pastels. He also used green and yellow paper to add leaves. 

 The art project was fun and easy. I think he could have drawn his own chimp if he wanted to.

The instructions were really clear and easy to follow. 

Resources:
Biography Brochure
Art Lesson
QR Codes

Linked Up With
Practical Monday

Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley Biography Study

Hi guys! Today I wanted to share with you our biography research study on Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley. I chose to start with him for several reasons. First, we love this book and it's a classic. Second, it worked perfect with the season we're in currently. Also, it's a quick read so it's easy to take notes on. And last, the subject of snow always fascinates kids. We started off by talking about how and why we do research. The boys helped me make a list.

1. Pick your topic/Subject
2. Collect your resources (books, internet, videos, newspaper, etc.)
3. Ask questions (this will help determine what to look for)
4. Organize your research

Here are the 3 books we used. Our main text for the research was Snowflake Bentley. The other two were just fun reads. 

We also used these QR codes that I put together for the boys. You can grab your free copy here.

We talked about the importance of citing your source. The boys used index cards to do their research.

Authors Last name, first name.Title. Where it was published:Publishing company, date of publication.

Research Portion:

The research part was new to both boys. They wanted to copy everything word for word so I had to do a lot of modeling. I used this resource here to guide me and how to teach them. 

The boys had 3 index cards with three questions to lead their research. We focused on his childhood, adulthood, accomplishments, fun facts, and quotes. 

Here he is looking for some fun facts.

Turning Their Notes into Paragraphs:

After the research portion was over the boys had to turn their notes into full sentences and write each of their paragraphs. 

One thing I loved about the resource we used is after each paragraph was written the boys had

to go back and highlight their 3 must haves. They did this for each of their 5 paragraphs. 

Writing his introduction paragraph.

Final Draft:

The boys edited and chose to type out their biography report. 

Art:

We always try to incorporate some art into all our units. The boys made snowflake paper cut outs. 

The boys wrote down four character traits of Wilson Bentley around the snowflake.

The boys really loved learning all about Wilson Bentley we can't wait to learn about all the other great people we have lined up.

Linked Up With
Montessori Mondays