Research Begins in Kindergarten

Teacher asks students to research a specific non-fiction fact. "What do bears eat?"

Children are presented with many non-fiction books about bears and during a quiet reading period, research these books, looking for pictures of bears eating different things. They are instructed to 'book mark' these pages using a sticky note and to take pictures of them.

Once the research is done and the pictures have been taken, they are to put the books onto the easel for a reading by the teacher. The teacher might paraphrase the contents of the book if it is above their level of reading. With the teacher's help, the students write a sentence about what the bear is eating.

The teacher downloads the pictures and sentences and a picture of the researcher, creating a slide show,

The class has a beautiful book to read about bears. This class book can be accessed during computer time or shared with other classes for their study. If a white board is available, the books can be read by the whole class and used at parent functions.

During the coarse of the year we study many different animal themes. We begin the year with bears and spend 6 weeks learning about them. Then we go into the many different forest animals, jungle and farm animals and the ocean animals.

This plan is also a wonderful way to include vocabulary words, phonics and ofcourse learning about research at a young age.