Animal Adaptation

I am working on a collaborative project focusing on Animal Adaptation with a third grade class . We began with bringing the students to the Library Media Center and talking to them about the resources available in school, both online and non fiction books. Students were also given a lesson on how to navigate through a non fiction book.

The students were then asked to review the information about the different biomes and chose one they would be most interested in . They filled out a form with their top three choices.. From this form they will be placed into groups of three. Each group will represent a biome. Using a webquest and a Biome Resource Book, they will look up facts about plants, animals and climate and record the facts in their resource book. From there, each student will choose an animal to portray in a skit. The skit will be recorded using a Flip Video camera. Students will also create their own costumes or masks that reflect the characteristic their animal has that helps them to adapt to their environment. The background for their video needs to reflect the characteristics of the Biome they are representing.

All the videos will be compiled in Movie Maker and then presented to the parents at the end of the unit.

The class is a very diverse group of students - with a good number of the students having been identified with special needs, including autism, ADHD and learning disabilities.