"I loved this project. Can we do another one?"

The fourth graders presented their picture book biography projects today! 

The students did a fabulous job of practicing their presenting skills by speaking slowly, looking at their audience, and speaking in an engaging manner.

After the presentations, I asked the students to reflect on the process and share their feedback. I already know something that I would change next time: I would ask for evidence from the text as opposed to talking about quoting the text. Here's what they had to say:

Mrs. Reed, you should also know that...

I think we should use google docs more because it's fun!

Can we do this again?

We should have more time to work

You did a good job explaining the project and over all it was fun.

THIS WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

I think you should do these types of things more often!

I liked this project.

We need more time to do the project.

That you did a great job

It was a little complicated when you said something like command, shift, 4 and how to get the link to a website and stuff related to that. 

I wanted to do google slides but my partner said no.

I liked this project but I wish we had more time          

This was fun

I would like if we could do more presentations

I loved doing something different in Library 

You should make sure everything's clear

It was really fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I loved this project can we do another one?

I really enjoyed learning about how to create the presentation 

We didn't have time to do quotes in the book otherwise we would have done them.

You should make sure everything's clear

We need more freedom while making our biography slides. 

This was such a fun project, we should do it more!

I had too little time 

I liked this project

I think that this was a great learning experince and I hope to to it again

We should have more time to work on this and make it more complex.

We did not have enough time to finish

This project was really fun!

I wish we can choose partners.

We should do another google slides presentation

We should do it again

I love to read books about famous people

It was super fun!

I liked doing a google presentation

I want to do this more

That you should do this project forever

I like making this presentation and I would really like to do it again

This was fun

You should do this type of project more often.

Library should be 30 minutes longer. :D

This was awesome and so much fun! :D

I want to do this project again next year but with a different person to study so I could learn about them too.

I wish I could make a google presentation

I liked this presentation project

Lots for me to unpack here, but I think it was a hit!

First Grade Biographers Read, Create, and Share.

This is what first graders gathering information and sharing their knowledge look like in my library. 

This is what their finished projects look like and sound like:

After watching the videos, students shared something they learned with an elbow partner. Next, they shared something they would change about their own slide and how they felt when their slide was on the screen. Here are some of the words they used to describe how they felt: proud, scared, sad, embarrassed, excited, brave, and uncomfortable. We had a much deeper discussion than I anticipated. I reminded the students that this is a learning journey and explained that they would have many opportunities to practice these communication different skills.  

How we got here. As with my fourth grade biography project, this one is taking longer than expected due to snow days and vacations. Three of the four classes have finished the project, watch the final slide show, and reflected on the whole experience. 

Week One: 

Show students projects from two years ago. Remind students how to access and navigate PebbleGo.

Students explore biographies in PebbleGo and find a person they are interested in both learning about and then sharing that information with others.

Week Two:

Students read or listen to biographies a few times and answer questions on information gathering form. Students create a sketch for their KidPix slide.

Week Three: 

Introduce KidPix

Students Explore KidPix

Students begin sketch

Week Four:

Students complete sketch and use voice feature to share what they learned.

Week Five:

Students watch slide show of the projects and reflect on the process.

Examples of information gathering form:

Identifying Personality Traits and Finding Evidence: 4th Grade Biography Project

The fourth graders have been engaged in a biography project. 

The students started the project by choosing a subject from our biography collection. It had to be in picture book format as they had to be able to read it during one library class. This project was adapted from a project I did with last year's fifth graders. You can read about that project on this blog post.

I switched the project up a bit so it was in better keeping with the grade level curriculum -- the fourth graders focus on personality traits and finding evidence in the text to support their thinking.  

It has taken a bit longer than expected due to snow days and vacations, but they are in the home stretch! Here's an approximate schedule for this project:

Week One: 

Explain Project

Show Examples (see above) 

Students choose a biography

Week Two:

Students read biographies and begin to take notes/capture thinking

Week Three:

Students determine the personality traits, find evidence in text, identify achievements/accomplishment

Week Four: 

Students complete work from the week before and write the six word memoir

Week Five: 

Students choose either a poster or Google Slides presentation for the project and begin creating it

Model finding images and citing sources

Week Six: 

Students finish product (poster or presentation)

Week Seven: 

Present their projects to each other

Here's a look at some of their work thus far. These are WIP and will be edited to style, spelling, etc. We'll be talking about font choice, color, layout, and other digital citizenship tips.

5th Graders' shark research yields many interesting facts...

My fifth grade students spent the few weeks leading up to the break researching sharks while also learning about being good digital citizens. You can read about the project at its outset here. 

Working in pairs or small groups, the students crafted a researchable question about sharks. Using our library resources they worked to find answers to their questions. This project provided an opportunity to practice using our note taking and sources documents: 

They then presented what they learned on a Google Slide (or more if they wanted). The students used Britannica ImageQuest to find an image that reinforced the content of their slide. Being good digital citizens they also worked on presenting their information in a clear and concise manner. (We talk a lot about not letting the message get lost in the medium.)

A huge thank you to Heather Lang for the inspiration for this project. We started off by reading her new book, Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark. 

Both narrative and art shine in this very cool and engaging biography.  I had never heard of Eugenie Clark prior to reading the biography. The students in my school are likely tired of me talking about the power of the picture book biography to inspire and inform. Heather Lang does a wonderful job of balancing her narrative by providing enough details about Eugenie's life to understand her contributions while also giving insight into the personality and character traits that made her successful in her ventures. The author's note fills in a few more important details about Eugenie's life, details which got a few of my students fired up about the obstacles she faced.

Jordi Solano's beautiful (in both depth and detail) illustrations make the reader feel as if he or she is swimming with the sharks, bringing us right into Eugenie's world. The images of Eugenie portray her as the serious scientist she was.

Below are the slides my students created. Thanks for taking the time to watch!

Please share your feedback. What did you learn from them? What did they do well? 

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Student reflection and feedback on this project:

 

What else should I know

to make this project better in the future?

I would like this project to be a little longer

Let people choose their own partners.

I think we should use powerpoint in the future.

Make sure that everyone is doing work and including each other and letting everyone do the work.

Nothing! Just do it more in the future

Choose a different topic

Cool effects such as music and other things 

Cool effects such as music and other things

Give more time to create the slide but otherwise the project was great.

You should have more time to make it.

well I loved the idea of letting us feel more free, but I think next time we should have a more engaging topic.

nothing

I think the topic we were researching (in this case shark) should be something else. I already know a lot about sharks because of my sister

larger slides!

more freedom

to have everyone use the same source

I think you should give us a bigger project to complete and more time.

Make this project more fun.

nothing

More freedom 

We should work on something we want to research on and get to pick our partners

Use google images from the research tool

Maybe a little more time to develop presenting/more practice time

A little bit more explaining but otherwise I really enjoyed it!

I think the project would be even better if all the computers worked. Thanks!

To get all the computers to work

you should let us pick the topic that we research and pick our OWN partners that we will work well with.

Let people pick the subject they want

It wasn't my favorite project.

I can see that this project helped students feel more confident as digital citizens and that we need to spend more time on citing sources. Opening up the topics would have made many of them happier, but I think keeping it contained for this project was a good choice.