Animal Rescue Comes to Kindergarten!

My student teacher, Miss Lobreau has been involved in our collaborative project, Little Hands, Big World, since the beginning of her student teaching placement. Although this is her first placement, she was eager to plan an integrated thematic unit, and we decided that animal rescue/pets would be very timely and an excellent fit with our collaborative project.

Integrating outcomes from social studies, mathematics, and ELA, as well as descriptors from Manitoba Education's Literacy with ICT continuum, Miss Lobreau has planned an exciting and engaging unit with strong links to ESD and social responsibility. She taught her introductory lesson today--take a look at this learning experience!

Table Graffiti: Megan covered the students' tables with brown paper and divided each table in half. After providing photographic examples of graffiti on the Smartboard, the students were given the opportunity to create their own graffiti on their tables. After ten minutes of drawing and printing words about their pets and their needs, students participated in a gallery walk. The next 15 minutes were spent at the Smartboard in our classroom.

Animal and Human Needs Smart Notebook lesson (sourced from Smart Exchange then modified).

Animal Needs Sorting Activity
Students applied their learning by completing this cut and paste sorting activity:

Animal Needs Sorting Worksheet
Later in the morning, Miss Lobreau developed important numeracy skills with this graphing activity on the Smartboard.

Dogs and Cats Graphing Activity for Smartboard

Stay tuned to see how our kindergarten students will apply their learning to make a difference for animals who need homes! This afternoon, we are excited to welcome a cat breeder of Ragdoll-Himalayans to our classroom!