I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for a Life Cycle project for 1st-3rd graders. I would prefer to stick to 1st grade, if possible. My original plan was to teach them about Life cycles and have them do mini-activities every day of the week. However, this is not really an inquiry based project. Does anyone have any experience or ideas of a 2 week long project that I could use? Thanks for the help!
I found an article about life cycles that contains information about two books and has two lesson plans dealing with the life cycles of butterflies and frogs. It can be found at http://learningcenter.nsta.org/product_detail.aspx?id=10.2505/4/sc12_050_01_16 Another thing you might try is to take a picture of your students at the beginning of the year and then another at the end of the school year and have them compare the photos to see how they have changed over time.
Thank you Betty, I appreciate the response as well as the resource. However, the inquiry based unit has to be a project that they are doing on top of the learning. We will assume the students have already learned about life cycles and want to have them do a project outside of learning. For example, bringing a Caterpillar into the classroom and have them observe the change. The picture idea sounds great but will not work for a 2-4 week unit :( Thanks again! Dounia
Hi Dounia, Your inquiry based-project sounds like a great idea for young scientists to really experience learning! I created a collection of NSTA resources that you might find useful. Some of the resources are for older students, but you can adapt the activities for the 1-3 grade level. I attached the collection below. Maureen
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