Topic 9 - Student Research/Publisher

Last week my students started their first research project (in third grade). Before we began, we reviewed what "kid-friendly" sites look like as well as the difference between a website and a search engine. We have been studying communities in Social Studies. I had them pick a different community in the U.S. and a different community in another country. I then gave them a research page that I typed on word. I thought this might be a good way to start them off so they could have a note taking page and their research would be structured. They had to research their own community and the two other communities that they picked.

We researched Dallas together. Normally, I don't allow my students to use Wikipedia, but I checked the facts about Dallas ahead of time and they were accurate, so I used this as a learning tool and explained to my students that anyone can go in and post on Wikipedia and is usually not the best place to find research. I then showed my kids NetTrekker, Enchanted Learning, and Google Kids. I gave them some time to research and find the specific information they were looking for.

The next step is creating a brochure on Publisher. My kids will tell about each of their communities in a brochure format. This part of the lesson is very guided by me since they have not used Publisher before. Last week we designed the covers. They got to explore with different layouts, fonts, colors, etc. They also were able to go to Google Images and find a picture for the front of their brochure. We are going to continue this lesson on Friday and my students will designate a portion of their brochure for each community. They will find picture of their community and describe the different cultures and interesting facts about their community.

I have enjoyed doing this sort of project over giving them the worksheets that come with the book. They are learning the same type of information, but this is hands-on and more "real" to them. I think they are learning more about different cultures by researching on their own and not just getting facts from the text book. I think this assignment has had more meaning to them because they were able to choose the communities they wanted research. I also think my students are highly motivated by technology. We started this project using our COW and my kids are always excited about using the laptops.