My two kiddos have been working for two weeks on their projects for our Homeschool Co-op Science/Geography/Arts Fair. Although I admit to doing all of the hot gluing, the kids learned about their birds, their habitats, and nests, gathered all of the materials, and did all of the work themselves. I gave ideas here and there and provided necessities, but each day they worked on an aspect of their projects and finished them yesterday. They were proud of their work and I was proud of how hard they worked.
It's hard to see what amount of work really went into their dioramas at just a glance. They had to learn each bird's habitat and recreate it. Then they had to learn how each type of bird makes their nest, locate the materials (in the freezing cold weather), and make the nests. Eli's is actually grasses and weeds held together completely by mud, lined with string, pieces of cloth, and more grass. Brynne's included very specific layers that cardinals use, including a bed of leaves and pieces of bark. They learned what each bird's eggs look like and made them out of play dough. Then they appropriately colored their birds.
Today was the big day. They proudly displayed their bird habitat dioramas.
Parents, grandparents, etc., voted on the projects that were divided by subject and grade level. Eli and Brynne were in the same age category, which was Grades 3-5. I considered putting Brynne in the K-2 grade level, since she is only seven, but since her and Eli do all third grade work, I kept her with Eli in the 3-5 grade level. And, as typically happens with us, one of them won something and the other didn't. Brynne won "Most Creative" in her age category. Both kids received a participation certificate.
I was very proud of both of them for working hard and participating in something new.
Those are beautiful dioramas!
ReplyDeleteI love their dioramas, especially that they are really a representation of all they learned. Looks like a great combo of interest-led and project-based learning! I know both my kids got a lot out of the science fair we participated in last fall. I like seeing them spend a lot of time working on a project and being able to show it to others.
ReplyDeleteGreat job, kids!
Please tell the kids that their dioramas are beautifully done and have inspired the Weaver kids to do the same type of project! How fun! We have an area park that offers an early morning bird watching hike, so we may kick the unit off with that! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWell done Eli and Brynne, well done! :)
Wow! Those are awesome looking! Congrats to them both. We are participating in a science fair in April - we need to get started!
ReplyDeleteThose dioramas are just beautiful! They must be so proud of their hard work!
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