First-graders began studying landforms a few weeks ago, learning the basic types of landforms and their characteristics. What began as a simple class assignment to gauge understanding, ended up being a comprehensive study of a landform of the students' choice.
Each child began the projects having to find two facts about their landform. Given the opportunity to research through reading and listening to educational videos, students asked to continue researching interesting facts on their own. The students continued to learn and gather facts until they had collected a minimum of five facts. Once the students were finished gathering their information, they had to transfer their notes into five well-written sentences in cursive.
In addition to writing five sentences in cursive, the children created a Keynote presentation, a salt dough model of their landform and a Flip Grid presentation. The Flip Grid allowed the students to take their information and record themselves presenting it. To finish the project, students had the opportunity to present their finished products to family, friends and members of the school community.
My favorite part of this project was that the children's genuine desire to learn more allowed for them to produce work that was engaging, interesting and truly reflected the interest of each child.
