research projects for kindergarten

The Trapped Librarian

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February 19, 2021 by: Laura

Research Skills for Kindergarten and First Grade

Last Updated on February 18, 2024 by Laura

Is it possible to teach research skills in the primary grades? Of course the answer is a resounding “YES!” The key is looking at the big picture – what will your students need as they progress though school? Research skills for kindergarten and first grade students lay the groundwork for future learning and success. Think of these skills in the primary grades as building a strong foundation.

Scaffold Research Skills

As with so many important skills, we need to start small when approaching research skills for kindergarten and first grade students. But, don’t just think about your students’ needs right now – look to the future. If you begin with the end in mind (5h grade? 8th grade? 12th grade?), you will be helping your young students understand concepts that will serve them well in later learning. It is important to teach skills each year that build upon one another .

Use Research Vocabulary

Using the proper vocabulary while teaching research skills to primary students is one way to build that strong foundation for future learning. Make sure you use the same words that you use with your older students, taking time to explain their meanings and give examples as you go. These words will be familiar each year as you do more research lessons. Some important words to consider:

• Informational Text

Do a Project Together

One strategy for teaching research skills to kindergarten and first grade students is to do a project together. As the teacher, you can choose the topic – perhaps George Washington or Abraham Lincol n in February, or your school’s mascot animal any time of year. You might even want to try a holiday research activity in December. Using a simple notetaking outline or booklet, you can model taking notes and writing down interesting facts as you go.

Give Choices

Of course, it’s always nice to give choices when you can. You want your students to know that they can use library resources to explore topics of personal interest any time! Now, I know I just suggested that you do a guided project together, but can you offer choice within your guided project? Giving your kindergarten and first grade students the choice between George Washington or Abraham Lincoln is still manageable for you as a librarian or teacher. You could also let them choose an animal to researc h . Give a list of 5 to choose from, if you’re concerned about this lesson getting out of control.

Use Kid-Friendly Resources

Does your school library subscribe to any online databases for primary students? The Abdo Zoom Animals and Biography databases are excellent for kindergarten and first grade students. When you guide them through a joint research project and model searching and navigating your databases, you’re definitely setting your young learners up for future success. After the project is over, give them time to explore topics of their own choosing using the database.

Choose a couple of strong print resources to use during your research project. Blastoff Readers and Bullfrog Books are excellent choices for their text features, clear photos, and kid-friendly layout. Create a display of related nonfiction titles for your kindergarten and first grade students to explore after the research is complete.

Encourage Sharing

One of the biggest joys of learning is sharing new information with others! Students can create a poster to display on a bulletin board, or a booklet to read to a big buddy. And of course you’ll want to encourage your primary students to bring home their projects to share their learning with their families!

Make it Easy on Yourself!

If you’re looking for made-for-you activities to help you teach research skills to your kindergarten and first grade students, I can help! These popular resources have been used as whole group activities, centers, and collaborative projects.

• Animal Research K-1 is fun and engaging any time of year!
• President Research K-1 is great for February activities around President’s Day.

Research Skills for Elementary Students

Research skills for kindergarten and first grade students lay the foundation for future learning. If you’re looking for scaffolded lessons to take the learning from kindergarten to fifth grade, check out the resources in this Ultimate Research Bundle . You’ll get lessons and activities for animal research projects and president research projects. Each grade builds upon skills taught the previous year. Help your students progress in their mastery of research skills throughout their elementary school years!

Be the light!

February 19, 2021 at 6:49 PM

Great tips for easing our littles into research! Thanks!

February 28, 2021 at 10:55 AM

First of all, I would like to mention that I really enjoyed reading your post and appreciate all the tips you are sharing. Second of all, you mentioned to “do a project together”. I have been a Kindergarten and Grade one teacher in the past and I remember how hectic things could get when I was trying to get every student connected at once. I don’t have any teacher librarian experience, I am currently enrolled in a Teacher Librarian program. So what suggestions do you have to run this experience smoothly? I was thinking in asking the help of the classroom teacher for that purpose but maybe there are other ways to do this. Thank you.

March 23, 2021 at 9:42 AM

Hi Carla – Thanks for stopping by! With these littles, you could project your source on the big screen and read through it with them, modeling your thinking and even taking very simple notes (using your document camera – toggle between the computer display and the doc cam). In “normal” years, I would pair up these students as a follow up to the lesson and allow them to explore the source (for example, Abdo Zoom – Animals or World Book Early World of Learning Animals category). Yes, you could get a volunteer or two or some older kids to come in and help. I would set up my computers before class and then rotate around and help students as needed. It is chaotic at first, but they get comfortable with the navigation pretty quickly, especially when you’ve modeled it first the week before. Best wishes to you!!

January 2, 2022 at 10:11 AM

You mentioned a winter sports research project. Is that one available for purchase? That would be fantastic for the Winter Olympics in February. Thank you for sharing all your fabulous lessons.

January 2, 2022 at 10:55 AM

Hi Kayla! I do have a resource for Winter Olympics/Winter Sports. It’s a bulletin board and mini research project and you can find it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-Sports-Bulletin-Board-and-Mini-Research-Kit-3653324?utm_source=trapppedlibrarian.org&utm_campaign=TL%20Winter%20Sports%20Blog

March 28, 2022 at 5:52 PM

I was doing research just today with my pre-k and 1st grade classes. We started with a KWL chart, listing things students know about birds, then developed questions for the want to know column. When we had 3 questions, I divided the students into small groups and gave them non-fiction picture books about many kinds of birds to look through and find answers. My TA, the pre-k TA, and I helped guide the students’ research and helped with reading as necessary.

Questions were: are all birds born from eggs? why do birds lay eggs in nests? are all nests built in trees?

Students were very engaged and excited about researching “like the big kids”.

April 15, 2022 at 10:22 AM

Sounds like a great lesson, Denise! Thanks for sharing!

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8 Genius Research Projects for K–2 Students You Will Definitely Want to Try

Turn your K–2 students into researchers and detectives with these fun classroom projects.

PebbleGo  is the award-winning database for reading and research for K-2. It makes learning fun while improving reading and research skills. Learn more about the six different databases—Animals, Science, Biographies, Dinosaurs, Social Studies  and the Spanish-language Animals. 

Research-based learning is often reserved for students in upper elementary or middle school, but this is a skill that kids can and do learn at an early age. Yes, you can teach kindergarteners how to do proper research (i.e. be awesome detectives and readers) . 

Here are eight inspiring research projects on subjects common for the K–2 age group. For each one, we give tips for LEARNING about the specific subject first with key research questions and tasks. Then, we offer a creative project idea, inspired by teachers and educators around the country, for DOING with your students.

1. The World of Bugs

SOURCE: Plain Vanilla Mom

It’s a big, enormous world out there—and there are   lots of bugs in it. This is a good one to start with if you’re teaching young elementary students how to research. Spiders, insects, and bugs will forever be fascinating subjects for kids. So this project should generate a lot of excitement.

LEARNING: Assign each of your students a different bug and have them answer very simple questions like: How many legs do they have? Where can you find them? How big are they?

DOING: This bug fossil activity is fantastic! All you need is modeling clay, plastic insects (which you can get at the dollar store), a magnifying glass, and tweezers or tongs. Your students will love making the little molds, and it will really encourage them to pay attention to detail!

2. Money, Money, Money

Source: 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Understanding the value of a dollar, counting, and even doing small math problems with money are all skills that your students will be doing for years to come. Here’s how you can get them going on concepts now.

LEARNING: Start with the basics and make sure your students know the value of each bill and coin. Once they understand this, talk to them about earning money, saving, and even the purpose of banks.

DOING: Get inspired by this money minibook. Either download a free one (see link above) or create your own version to meet your classroom needs. Create several books for your class or one for each student as a quick reference to help them really understand the value of money.

3. History and Fame

Source: Let’s Explore

Every grade level has history and biographies as part of its curriculum. It’s essential for students to learn about historymakers, inventors, artists, and other important people of the past, and there are lots of fun ways to do this.

LEARNING: The research comes first, so it’s a good idea to assign a famous person to each of your students. Have them do a little biography, answering questions like: When were they born? Why are they famous? Where did they live?

DOING: Now it’s time for the fun part, where students get to be creative in reporting their results. Some teachers have the students get up in front of the class to present on their specific person, while others make it an art project. We love biography poster collages, like the one pictured above, because they really encourage students to focus on the most essential biographical facts.

4. Learning Plant Life Cycle

Source: The Imagination Tree

Learning about plant life is always a popular classroom activity. It’s such a great opportunity to show students how things grow, and help them understand where their food comes from. 

LEARNING: Students can research farming and agriculture, and learn about where food comes from, both locally and around the world. Discover where tropical fruits like bananas and pineapple come from compared to crops in the United States like corn, potatoes, and beans. Help students understand that all plants have a similar start like the beans you will grow in class. 

DOING:  Plant your bean plants in a clear container like a jar. You can use paper towel or cotton balls for the planting so students will be able to see the roots grow and develop. Have students track the plant’s progress. They can measure it, take photos, or draw pictures every few days. Your students will love seeing how it changes so quickly. 

5. Animal Tracks

Source: Green Kids Crafts

Animals are such a big interest area for younger elementary students, and they make lessons instantly more popular. This really useful lesson covers animals, human anatomy, and animal habitats.

LEARNING: When your class studies animal tracks, students can learn a lot about animals. For instance, they can learn about an animal’s size. They can also compare the size of the animal track to their own handprints or footprints for an anatomy lesson. And students can learn about animal habitats, too! We can help our students understand how all of these items are connected.

DOING: Now that your students have learned about animal tracks, have them recreate the tracks using cardboard scraps and sponges. This will give them a real idea of the actual size and shape of different tracks in the wild.

6. Digging into Dinosaurs

Source: Inquiring Minds

Even though they’re now extinct, dinosaurs remain some of the most popular animals with kids. Once you get your students researching, they can learn so much about these magnificent animals that came before us.

LEARNING: Help your students define the words “paleontology” and “paleontologist.” Next, encourage your kids to research different types of dinosaurs. Have them answer questions like: What were some of the big ones? Which ones could fly? What did different types of dinosaurs eat? These will all be important questions to answer before you dive into a project.

DOING: You can steal the sponge idea mentioned above to also create dinosaur tracks. Or for the ambitious teacher, create your very own giant dinosaur skeleton. This teacher outlined the shape for her students and then let them use packing peanuts and empty cardboard tubes to fill the inside.

7. Environment and Pollution

Source: The Owl Teacher

Whether you’re looking for a good Earth Day activity or you just want to teach your students more about environmental issues we are facing around the world, you can bring home the message by studying water pollution. This is a topic that affects millions every single day.

LEARNING: First, learn about the different types of pollution with your students. Air and water pollution are two big ones to start with. Help your kids learn the difference between these two and what they look like. Then ask them a question like, how could pollution affect animals, humans, and the future? Questions like this might seem too big for little minds, but they can handle it!

DOING: It really helps to see this lesson firsthand, and this Freddie the Fish activity is perfect. You’ll definitely want to see this teacher’s step-by-step instructions  describing how she did it, but the basics involve a fish-shaped sponge, plastic containers, and adding different toxins to the water. Your students will really start to see how a little bit of water pollution can really get out of hand quickly.

8. Color Mixing 

Source: Preschool Inspirations  

Color mixing is always a popular activity, and it’s great for hands-on research. Your students will love being in charge of the colors and watching them change before their eyes. 

LEARNING: Talk to your students about primary colors and go over the basics of what happens when you blend colors together. Depending on age, talk to them about why this happens and/or what they are seeing. Work with them to come up with a list or anchor chart about the most common color combinations. 

DOING: There are so many great color-mixing activities out there, including mixing colorful ice cubes or having a color mixing station in the classroom. We also love this project from Preschool Inspirations,  where they make sensory bottles with color mixing. 

Make research for your K–2 students easier by using PebbleGo , a reading and research database specifically targeting younger elementary students.

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Kindergarten Science Projects

Ideas for Kindergarten Science Fair Projects

• Projects & Experiments
• Chemical Laws
• Periodic Table
• Scientific Method
• Biochemistry
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• Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
• B.A., Physics and Mathematics, Hastings College

Kindergarten science projects give kindergarten students the opportunity to explore science by making observations and predictions based on the observations. Concepts should be easy to understand and materials used in the science projects should be non-toxic and easy for small hands to manage. In many cases, kindergarten science involves group projects, so students can brainstorm ideas. Here are some examples of kindergarten science projects.

• Experiment with Color Either offer students finger paints in the primary colors, clay, or food coloring solutions and ask them to predict what will happen when they mix two of the colors. What do they expect will happen when they mix ​an unequal amount of colors? What if they mix all three colors?​ If possible, offer colored transparent sheets or tissue paper. Mixing colors of light produces very different results from mixing paints! Ask students what makes light different. This exercise offers a good opportunity to discuss the concept of a hypothesis . Ask kindergarten students to predict what will happen when different colors are mixed. Explain that one different between a guess and a hypothesis is that a hypothesis is based on information gathered from observations.
• Blow a Bigger Bubble Ask students if they think all bubble wands produce the same size and shape of bubbles. Test various bubble wands to see if their predictions are accurate. See if kindergarten students can make their own bubble wands from materials such as straw, strings, rolled and taped pieces of paper, etc. Which bubble wand produced the best bubble ?
• Liquids and Mixtures Prepare containers of oil, water, and syrup. Ask the kindergarten students to describe the properties of the liquids and to make predictions about what will happen if these liquids are mixed together. Have students mix the liquids and discuss what happened.
• What Makes Something Alive? Gather a collection of living and nonliving objects. Ask kindergarten students to decide what characteristics are necessary for something to be 'alive'. Do the living objects possess these characteristics? How about the non-living objects?
• Density Project Have students study density. Explain the concept of density. Collect small objects that can fit in a cup of water (e.g., coin, ​a piece of wood, plastic toy , stone, polystyrene foam). Ask the students to order the objects according to density, then drop each item into the water and see what happens.
• Explore Magnetism Talk about magnetism. Take a pair of bar magnets and ask students to predict which materials might be magnetic. Have the kindergarten students test objects for magnetism. Now ask ​a student to predict what will happen when two magnets approach each other. Discuss the results.
• Diffusion and Temperature Prepare a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water. Ask kindergarten students what they expect will happen when food coloring is dropped into a glass of water . Do they think there will be a difference between what happens if the temperature of the water is changed? Investigate what happens when the food coloring is dripped into each glass and discuss the process of diffusion.
• Describe an Ecosystem What is an ecosystem ? This science project involves having kindergarten students come up with a definition for an ecosystem. Then, go outside, measure off a square meter of ground, and have students catalog what is in that particular ecosystem. The concept of a food chain could be introduced as well.
• Classification Scientists classify animals, plants, minerals, and stars according to similarities. Often, there are disagreements about the best way to group things. Offer students a variety of objects and ask them to classify them and explain how they were grouped. If students choose different groupings, open the discussion so students understand why it sometimes takes scientists hundreds of years to reach agreement. This exercise also demonstrates there may be more than one right way to accomplish a task in science.
• Star Versus Planet In the modern age, astronomers seek planets using high powered magnification and a variety of instruments that detect types of radiation. How do kindergarten students think early scientists knew the difference between stars and planets? Ask students to go outside and find at least one planet in the night sky. Many free apps are available to make this easy. Then, ask them to compare the appearance of a planet to the stars and identify differences between them. Ask them how reliable they think these criteria are.
• Make Observations Making observations is the first step of the scientific method. While a kindergarten student might not be ready to tackle the whole method, learning to observe the natural world is a great way to introduce them to critical thinking. Choose any object or event and ask students to make observations.

Ready for more? Check out some science projects for first graders .

• How to Make a Baking Soda Volcano
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• The Dancing Raisin Experiment
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5 Fun Butterfly Research Activities for Kindergarten

Do you study and research the life cycle of butterflies in your classroom? I LOVE teaching all about butterflies in my kindergarten class! It’s such a fun science topic to dive into with students. If you’re looking for new ways to teach this topic in your classroom, you’re in luck! Today I’m sharing all the details of my favorite butterfly research activities for kindergarten!

Benefits of Using Butterfly Research Activities

I love focusing on science themes with my kindergarteners. Butterflies are one of my favorite science topics since they are so engaging to young students. Using butterfly themes and research activities is a great way to help children understand the basic needs of sustaining life, life cycles, and make personal connections to nature.

Butterfly research activities are also a great way to introduce children to the basics of the scientific method and observations. Not to mention, this topic is absolutely beloved by kindergarteners! It’s hard to find a topic that’s more fun for kiddos than this one.

Best Time of Year For Butterfly Research

Many teachers tend to teach about butterflies in the late spring to early summer months. This time of year works out well in our classroom since spring and summer are often tied to themes like weather, changing of the seasons, baby animals, and insects. Butterflies fit right in with these themes and work well with what my students are already learning.

This time of the year is also best if you plan to raise live butterflies in your classroom, as they will not survive in colder temps. If you live in an area with a mild-warm winter, you can probably flex these dates a little. The butterfly kit I like recommends a temp of 55-85 degrees Fahrenheit.

While you certainly don’t need a butterfly kit to learn about butterflies, I’ve found that it adds so much to our butterfly research activities!

The kit we use comes with a large, butterfly habitat and a voucher to order caterpillars. The caterpillars come in the mail and will take approximately 2-3 weeks to fully transform into butterflies. If you’re able, I highly recommend ordering a kit like this to use in your classroom, there’s nothing like watching the full transformation of a butterfly to inspire your little scientists!

Great Books for Butterfly Research

When it comes to teaching kindergarten, there is no better way to introduce a new subject than with books. Before we begin butterfly research activities, I like to stock our classroom library with a variety of fun books on the topic. I use a mix of non-fiction books along with silly, fictional stories based on butterflies.

Before beginning our activities, we read a few books that lay the foundation for our study. A few of my favorites include:

• Caterpillar to Butterfly by Laura Marsh
• Explore My World Butterflies by Marfe Delano
• Butterflies for Kids by Lauren Davidson
• Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons
• How to Raise Monarch Butterflies by Carol Pasternak

These books are a great way to introduce vocabulary words about butterflies, the butterfly life cycle, and learn some new facts about them. I typically work on making classroom anchor charts with my kiddos after each story to highlight a specific area of focus. Another fun option is to show kiddos a video that discusses the butterfly life cycle. I love this one since it explains each life stage from caterpillar to butterfly.

Butterfly Lapbook Activities

Once you’ve done some introductions, read your books, or watched a video, it’s time to jump into butterfly research activities! If you’ve been around here a while, you probably already know how much we LOVE using lapbooks for all of our study units. Butterflies are the perfect topic for lapbook activities!

If you’re new to lapbooks, take a peek at this post detailing everything you need to know.

Essentially, lapbooks are a smaller version of interactive notebooks. Lapbooks allow you to focus on one topic and collect all of your activities in one spot. They make a great keepsake after your study unit is done as well!

When it comes to learning about butterflies, lapbooks are such a great way to cover a ton of ground and help students remember everything they’ve learned.

There are tons of fun activities you can include in your lapbooks, but here are my top 5 favorites!

1. Butterfly Vocabulary Activities

When we first begin butterfly research lessons, I love to start by introducing vocabulary.

Since my kiddos already heard a few books on the topic, this is a great way to review what we’ve learned and cement those new vocabulary words a little further.

We use a worksheet that lists out key vocabulary words like chrysalis, metamorphosis, nectar, and more.

We read each word together in small groups and then read through the definitions.

Students will match the correct definition to each word and then glue the pieces down in their lapbooks.

When complete, students will be able to lift the flap for each word to reveal the definition.

2. Caterpillar & Butterfly Labeling

After we’ve recapped vocabulary, I love to use labeling activities next.

This is another opportunity to learn some new words about caterpillars and butterflies.

The labeling activities we use allow students to cut out and color a picture of a caterpillar and a butterfly.

They glue these down in their lapbooks and then, they will cut out labeling words to attach in the correct places.

When complete, students end up with a colorful caterpillar and butterfly in their lapbooks that are perfect for helping them to remember all of the body part names.

This is a great time to make a large anchor chart with your students to reference during their activity or revisit a book that covers body part names.

3. Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Next up, it’s time to discuss the butterfly life cycle!

If you decided to raise butterflies in your classroom as part of your research activities, you likely have discussed the life cycle in depth.

I always make sure to include a section in our lapbooks to recap the butterfly life cycle.

The worksheet we use for this activity asks students to cut, color, and glue down steps of the butterfly life cycle in the correct order on a strip of paper.

After these dry, children will fold the strip of paper accordion style to create an interactive fold-out in their lapbooks.

4. Butterfly Research Facts

Since the children are learning so much about butterflies through our research activities, I like to reserve a section in our lapbooks for them to compile facts.

We have 2 different options for this in our lapbooks. The first is a little pocket where they can keep a few cards with their favorite facts.

The second option is a flipbook-style worksheet that asks students to list things they have learned.

The topics for the flipbook include information about their babies, diet, habitats, changes, and types of butterflies.

Once students fill in some information for each, they can cut out the flaps and stack them together to create an interactive flipbook in their lapbook.

5. Butterfly Writing Prompts

Throughout the duration of our butterfly research activities, we use a variety of writing prompts to help students reflect on what they have learned.

One of my favorites to include for kindergarten are the “can, have, are” charts. These simple headings allow for quite a bit of creativity among the students and are a great way to recall information.

If we’re looking to take a deeper dive into writing, I have a few other fun writing prompts we use including:

• Would you want a pet caterpillar?
• Would you want a pet butterfly?
• If I was a butterfly, I would fly to…

I love to see what students come up with when using these writing prompts. Once students have written a few sentences, I have them glue their work down in their lapbooks to keep all of our butterfly activities together.

Even More Butterfly Research Activities

These butterfly lapbook activities have so much variety making them great for students with diverse skill sets. But there are so many other options beyond these as well! Some of the other butterfly research activities we use include:

• Caterpillars can/have/are
• Butterfly KWL
• Caterpillar KWL
• Label a Butterfly
• Butterfly Adjectives
• Caterpillar Adjectives
• Types of Butterflies
• Favorite Butterfly Book
• Compare Butterfly/Moth
• Compare Bee/Butterfly
• Butterfly Fact/Opinion

In addition to our paper lapbooks, I also have a digital option that is great for whole-class review, technology centers, and distance learning. I also like to assign the digital lapbook activities to students who were absent and missed out on the in-person lesson.

Get Started with Butterfly Research in your Classroom!

Ready to get started with butterfly research activities in your classroom? Be sure to check out both the printable and digital versions of my butterfly lapbooks!

No matter which lessons you choose to include, lapbooks are such a wonderful way to corral all of your butterfly research activities in one place. I love that once we conclude our studies, each child has a visual record of everything they’ve learned in one neat little package!

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If you are looking for hands-on, engaging kindergarten activities , you came to the right place!

I’m here to save you time by sharing tried and true kindergarten resources, tips, and ideas and hopefully give you some ideas for your own kindergarten lesson plans!

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Thursday, February 19, 2015

• Animal Research Project

112 comments:

Stop it right now!!!!!!!

OMGoodness! This is just precious! I am so doing this with my kiddos! Thanks for the great post, Caitlin! Ashley One Sharp Bunch

This is absolutely ADORABLE!! I would love to do this with my firsties!

This is amazing!! Can't wait to change up my informational writing unit to fit this into my plans!! :) Thanks for sharing, Caitlin!

Love this wonderful form of collaboration. The work is fantastic! You should be so proud of yourself and your students.

Wow!! Your kids (and you) are totally AWESOME. And so mature to work together and come up with a wonderful finished research project. What great work and team work!

This is amazing!!!

I love these pics! I am now so inspired to do this with my kiddos!! Thanks for the pics! They are precious! Linda Groce

These are incredible!! Absolutely fabulous!!! -Amanda Kindergarten Teacher at the Wheel

I love this idea! I found this awesome app: "30 Hands." It allows students to create digital stories using images, video, and their own handwriting. Then students can record their voices and tell a story. I think it would be really interesting to use that as another way for them to demonstrate what they have learned about their animals. You could use all the graphic organizers to set up their information before creating the digital story! Thank you for the awesome ideas :)

Where did you find their writing pages?

Danielle, the link is above (right at the beginning of the post)

This comment has been removed by the author.

This is an incredible idea! Modifying to use in one of my education classes, if that is okay?

I did this with my kindergarten class! They loved being independent with their learning! Tomorrow they are presenting their final projects to their parents! Thanks for the idea!! Mrs.T

I LOVE this!! I'm currently an elementary/collaborative major with hopes of landing a kindergarten classroom soon. One of my projects this semester is a teacher website. Do you mind if I link to this page for my fictional "class project update" on animals?

Not at all! Link away :)

Hi Caitlin, loved what you and your students did here! You've inspired me to purchase Tracey's pack. I'm curious, did you have the students in groups of 5? If so, when one student was scribing and perhaps one or 2 researching, what did you have the others doing? They all look totally engaged. :)

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5 Research-based Practices for Kindergarten and First Grade

Here's what every kindergarten and first grade teacher should be doing..

Posted June 1, 2017

[Note: In this guest post, two renowned former kindergarten teachers who wrote about the extraordinary literacy successes of children in their classrooms (Feldgus & Cardonick, 1999) show how today’s cutting -edge research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience supports the best practices they and their colleagues have advocated and honed for three decades. What they discovered intuitively and through reflection and collaboration is now cutting-edge best practice in 21st century kindergartens.]

5 Powerful Research-Based Techniques for Exemplary Kindergartens Today

By Eileen Feldgus PhD and Isabell Cardonick MEd

The recent high-profile spotlight on a landmark study in Developmental Psychology has drawn attention to research by Canadian cognitive psychologists Gene Ouellette and Monique Sénéchal (2017). In some respects Ouellette and Sénéchal discovered what we, Eileen and Isabell, have advocated for decades: a powerful connection to improved end-of-first-grade reading scores through the use of early writing and invented spelling. The study’s title, “Invented Spelling in Kindergarten as a Predictor of Reading and Spelling in Grade 1: A New Pathway to Literacy, or Just the Same Road, Less Known?”(Ouellette and Sénéchal, 2017), reflects what exemplary kindergarten teachers have known about the powerful writing/reading connection for years—kid writing is a pathway to reading success. But this work is still not well known or universally practiced. This less-known pathway is the one we traveled. Starting out as passionate kindergarten teachers in the 1960’s and 70’s, we were ardent about creating classrooms that worked for children. We devoured the research of that era and became life-long learners throughout our careers. Early on we discovered better outcomes for children as we focused more on writing, encouraged invented spelling, developed innovative strategies for teaching phonics and eliminated boring worksheets. Today in 2017 five best-practice techniques we discovered in our practice are now wholly supported by research and recommended for today’s kindergartens and first grades.

1. Use Invented Spelling (Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2017). We found invented spelling to be joyful, motivational for our students, and wonderful in terms of providing opportunities for scaffolding and systematically teaching almost all important aspects of the kindergarten literacy curriculum including phonics, phonemic awareness, knowledge of the alphabet, writing conventions, and vocabulary development. But perhaps the most amazing discovery throughout our journey was that kids had remarkable capacities to make meaning if we supported them in the process and allowed their creative juices to flow. Early on we learned as we had read in Don Graves’ research (1983), that kids write best when we step back and allow them to choose their own topics and give them ownership and autonomy. We called our teaching model, “Kid Writing” (1999). Our model fit perfectly with a growing model now called Guided Reading for differentiated reading instruction (Fountas & Pinnell, 2012) and we put in a whole layer underpinning Lucy Calkins work (2003) by showing teachers exactly how to get started and how to move forward with writing workshop and formative assessment. Here are a few samples that illustrate kids’ capacity to grow and flourish as writers in kindergarten:

When I was born my mommy and daddy used to pay a lot of attention to me. But now they don’t pay a lot of attention to me. They pay a lot to Conner.

2. Abandon teaching “Letter of the Week (Reutzel, 1992, 2015). Teaching one letter per week was standard practice in kindergarten when we began teaching. We tried our best to jazz up our teaching of the alphabetic principle because we knew it was essential to breaking the code and reading. Our students sang for the letter, danced for the letter, cooked for the letter, and cut and pasted for the letter. We took elaborate measures to teach the alphabet and sounds because we knew it was important. One fond memory was our “P” Party:” we served foods beginning with P—pizza, pretzels, popcorn, pepperoni, and the like. But with letter of the week the pace was too slow, and as far back as 1992 researchers were noticing the same problem and cautioning teachers to “break the letter-a-week tradition.” (Reutzel, 1992)

So in our classrooms we began to use children’s names on the first day of kindergarten—from Albert to Zoie—and learned to focus on all the sounds and letters from the very beginning. In contrast to when we were using letter of the week our students mastered letters and sounds far sooner.

Today, as reported by Reutzel (2015), “research has identified six evidence- based alphabet letter learning orders through which young children may acquire knowledge of alphabet letter names and sounds (Justice, Pence, Bowles, & Wiggins, 2006 ).” And guess what? “The first learning order is called the own-name effect.” (Reutzel, 2015) We got it right before the research proved it!

3. Use Invented Spelling and a Developmental Writing Scale to monitor progress (Gentry, 2006, 2000). Even before we published the first book on Kid Writing, we were collaborating with Richard Gentry on how to use a developmental spelling/writing assessment along with a developmental rubric to show how young children’s progression through five phases of developmental spelling revealed—among other things—the individual child’s understanding of phonics and his or her invented spellings as evidence of what the child knew or did not know. We found this work to be much more powerful for targeting instruction and monitoring kindergartners’ progress than traditional spelling tests or even measures of phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge. Progress monitoring by phase observation is now supported by empirical research! (Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2017)

When we started out as neophyte teachers, kids were simply memorizing words that we gave them on a list. We learned to scaffold what they were using in their invented spelling and to show them how English spelling works. Our teaching went from giving lists of what to spell to showing kids how to spell and invented spelling was our vehicle! Without getting into the particulars of an analysis, look at the following samples that show one kindergarten child’s remarkable progress from fall to spring of her kindergarten year.

September sample: It was a sunny day.

June sample: Tuesday my tooth was wiggling. When it was in my mouth, it bled. When it fell out, it stopped bleeding. My mom gently pulled it out with a paper towel and I was happy that it fell out.

4. Let go of worksheets! (Palmer & Invernizzi, 2015). We found that teaching and learning in our classrooms improved when we abandoned worksheets. Remember those nonsensical work sheets where children were to write the letter that the word for each picture would begin with? When we first began teaching we remember students who squirmed with sit-at-the-desk busy worksheets and struggled over the Y is for Yak worksheet wondering why Y was the match for the first sound in “goat” which is the picture they saw on the worksheet.

5. Teach children to stretch though a word with a moving target. (Feldgus, Cardonick, & Gentry, 2017) Research by Ouelette, validated our Stretching Through a Word with a Moving Target teaching methodology. Their research, “confirmed that facilitating invented spelling within a Vygotskian teaching approach can bring about benefits in learning to read and spell, and these benefits go beyond the expansion of alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness.

Our stretching through technique, for example, helped kids move from l for lady in Phase 2 to lad in Phase 3 to ladee in syllable chunks in Phase 4 on the way to conventional lady . The stretching through technique met kids where they were and supported them in moving to higher levels of spelling sophistication from phase to phase.

Keep the Faith—Keep the Passion—Keep Your Kids Writing

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is our passion for literacy-learning classrooms for beginners. Today as staff developers and authors, we continue to encounter kindergarten teachers all over America and beyond who share our passion, devotion to children, and vision for joyful, play-based, academic kindergarten and first grade classrooms. We believe implementing these five research-based strategies surrounding kid writing will be transformational in America. It is the answer to reversing the decades-old trend of flat-lined first grade reading scores!

For details on these five strategies and creating joyful kid-writing classrooms that work, check out our comprehensive guide for kindergarten and grade 1 teachers: Kid Writing in the 21st Century: A Systematic Approach to Phonics, Spelling and Writing Workshop (Hameray, 2017).

Link to Kid Writing to learn more.

Dr. J. Richard Gentry is the author of Raising Confident Readers, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write–From Baby to Age 7 . Follow him on Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn and find out more information about his work on his website .

Calkins, L. M. (2003). The Nuts and Bolts of Teaching Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Feldgus, E., Cardonick, I. & Gentry, J. R. (2017). Kid Writing in the 21st Century . Las Angeles, CA: Hameray Publishing Group.

Fountas, I. and Pinnell, G.S.(2013). The Reading Teacher. 66 (4) 268-284.

Gentry, R. (2006). Breaking the code: The new science of beginning reading and writing . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gentry, R. (2000). A retrospective on invented spelling and a look forward. The Reading Teacher . 54 (3) 318-332.

Graves, D. H. (1983). Writing: Teachers and Children at Work . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Justice , L.M. , Pence , K. , Bowles , R.B. , & Wiggins , A. ( 2006 ). An investigation of four hypotheses concerning the order by which 4- year- old children learn the alphabet letters. Early Childhood Research Quarterly , 21 ( 3), 374 – 389 .

Ouelette, G. & Sénéchal, M. (2017). Invented spelling in kindergarten as a predictor of reading and spelling in grade 1: A new Pathway to literacy, or just the same road, less known? Developmental Psychology . 53 (1) 77– 88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000179

Palmer, J. & Invernizzi, M. (2015). No More Phonics and Spelling Worksheets . Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.

Reutzel, D. R. (2015). Early literacy research: Findings primary-grade teachers will want to know. The Reading Teacher . 69, (1), 14–24. DOI: 10.1002/trtr.1387 © 2015 International Literacy Association

Reutzel , D.R. ( 1992 ). Breaking the letter- a- week tradition: Conveying the alphabetic principle to young children. Childhood Education , 69 ( 1 ), 20 – 23 .

J. Richard Gentry, Ph.D. , is an expert on childhood literacy, reading, and spelling. He is the author of Raising Confident Readers: H ow to Teach Your Child to Read and Write—Baby to Age 7 .

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Kindergarten Readiness Indicators

• Client Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, Welborn Baptist Foundation
• Dates 2016 - 2023

Historically, early childhood education systems have lacked a standard approach to measuring early math and literacy skills in pre-kindergarten classrooms. The Kindergarten Readiness Indicators (KRI) project helps early childhood providers address this critical information gap. Research underscores the importance of providing early math, language, and reading instruction in preschool, as reflected in Indiana’s Early Learning Foundations, the state’s early learning development framework for children three to five years of age. That is why in 2016 the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation and Welborn Baptist Foundation partnered with NORC at the University of Chicago to develop the KRI. This brief assessment measures early literacy and numeracy skills for pre-K children. Pre-K providers are now assessing students across the state of Indiana who are participating in On My Way Pre-K-funded programs. 

The Fairbanks Foundation also provided funding to Early Learning Indiana (ELI) to help pilot the KRI in Marion County, while Welborn Baptist Foundation provided funding to 4C to help pilot the test in Vanderburgh County. In total, the Fairbanks Foundation awarded $254,454 to fund the development of the KRI. NORC helped develop and support the virtual training and certification for pre-K providers. ELI provided assessors to accommodate the obstacles COVID-19 created to traditional in-person training and certification. 

In 2019, the State of Indiana adopted the KRI to assess children who participate in the On My Way Pre-K program and collect aggregated data on kindergarten readiness. Results from the KRI, which will be administered in On My Way Pre-K classrooms for the first time in April 2021, will provide early childhood centers with insights into where their lessons are most effective and where students need more support. 

“The KRI will be our first real temperature check in these essential foundational skills of early math and literacy ,” said Maureen Weber, President and CEO of Early Learning Indiana. “ We’re really hopeful that the KRI will give us a way of letting policymakers and others know the health of early childhood education in Indiana overall.”   

In the 2022 school year, NORC worked with the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA), Indiana’s state department that oversees Early Childhood Education, to develop and enhance the KRI’s training and certification features to further inform and provide access to critical literacy and math foundational skills for all pre-K providers.

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Kindergarten Writing Lessons: Animals

• Greg Smedley-Warren
• April 21, 2024
• No Comments

Writing and research are among the most intimidating things to do in kindergarten, so hopefully, these kindergarten writing lessons will make things easier!   Research involves a great deal of reading, comprehension, and vocabulary.  And then you have to be able to translate that into writing.  That is a daunting task for kindergartners and all early childhood classrooms. Daunting is not impossible, though. Our zoo Animals Research Project makes kindergarten writing lessons fun and engaging! And it’s aligned with the science of reading!

Kindergarten Writing Lessons: Zoo Animals Research Project

We use read-alouds and videos for our research.  We use graphic organizers to record our research and learning.  Then, we used the organizers to complete our research journal.  And finally, we use all of those resources to write!  Not only are we learning to research and write, but we’re also meeting science standards as we learn about animals, habitats, and adaptations!

Kindergarten Writing Lessons: Animals: Research Project

For each animal, we do a read aloud and for some animals, we watch a video. This is how we conduct our research. As we read, we record our learning and information on our graphic organizer. We complete the graphic organizer during the read-aloud. This allows us to focus on the learning. If we wait until after the read-aloud, it becomes an assessment, and we don’t want that. We’re also building language and do explicit vocabulary instruction, which is a cornerstone of our TKS research projects.

The students then use the graphic organizers to help with their writing. This is also when we work on writing instruction. We model conventions of writing, punctuation, etc. We encourage students to write on their own if they’re ready, but they’re also encouraged to use the graphic organizers. Some students might write on their own or some might copy from the graphic organizer. Those are both ok! Meet students where they are!

Kindergarten Writing Lessons: Animals: Labeling

To bring in explicit phonics instruction and learning about adaptations, we label the parts of the animals. We define each part of the animal, and the kids explain how the parts help the animals and how they are adapted to their habitats.

Kindergarten Writing Lessons: Animals Culminating Task

Students complete a culminating task at the end of our Zoo Animals Research Project. This allows students to apply what they’ve learned in a fun way. The task is to choose an animal for our zoo (an animal not already at the zoo) and design an exhibit for the animal. The exhibit must have the correct habitat and be designed for animal adaptations. They also create a sign for the exhibit with information about the animal.

Our Zoo Animals Research Project has everything you need to learn about animals:

Included activities:

• Schema maps
• Suggested read alouds
• Graphic organizers for 22 different animals
• Labeling activities
• Habitat sort
• Zoo exhibit design task
• Writing activities and rubrics
• Math and literacy centers

Zoo Animals Art Projects

Art projects are a must in any classroom, so we do fun art projects for each animal. This might a directed drawing, a handprint painting project or another type of art project. I model each step and the students complete their own project. No templates or patterns are used.

Animals Snacks

We also make fun, simple animal snacks to celebrate our learning!

The lion snack is two graham crackers with peanut butter in between the two crackers. Students insert pretzel sticks for the mane and add chocolate chips for the eyes and nose and a pretzel for the muzzle. The second snack is animal parfait: yogurt, granola, and animal crackers.

Animals Green Screen Pictures

My class loves using our green screen so students get to choose their favorite animal and pose for a picture!

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