My students need hands-on materials, including the Butterfly Pavilion, an incubator, an egg turner and books to help support our Life Cycle unit. I am planning to hatch chicks and butterflies in our classroom this spring.
My students are curious learners eager for hands-on learning to bring concepts to life. They're excited when they get that "AH-HA!" moment. When a child gets that moment he/she is happily sharing the new found knowledge with their peers. My students are always filled with thought-provoking questions.
My school is a small neighborhood school in a large urban school school district.
Funding is extremely limited, but I am determined to push my students to dive deeper into a topic and to ask multiple questions to clarify understanding regardless of the limited resources I may have available. My students respond by asking harder questions, demanding more information and when possible, they want to see it in person or experience it themselves.
My students love technology, and they love learning through the use of hands-on materials. The combination of both tools help reinforce topics I am teaching, and I find that my students crave more day after day.
My Project
I have planned a surprise unit on embryology and incubation for my students after spring break. I will bring in fertile eggs, and we will study the stages of incubation to hatching. My students will have firsthand experience learning about the life cycle of chicks. I am requesting reading and support materials, as well as an incubator and related materials, to reinforce this lesson with my students. My students crave information, and I want to make sure I have all the information I can gather to answer these questions and lead them to researching their own answers.
I also have a butterfly life cycle unit I would like to do with my students. I want to have a comparison of two different life cycles for them to observe, record, document, compare and contrast.
Similar to the materials for the chicks, I want to make sure I have a butterfly pavilion and adequate reading materials for my students to read and learn more about.
My students are city students.
They can read all the books they want to about the life cycle of a butterfly and the life cycle of a chick, but they won't have an opportunity to see both in person day-to-day.
My students will have the opportunity to see and document the changes, be able to physically hold and touch a chick (hopefully multiple chicks) and butterflies, and they will hopefully learn an appreciation for how things come to be.
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