A Project on Pets

By Simone Shirvell

When does a project really begin?  My "Pet Project" began long before the creation of a topic web and the sharing of my "Fat Cat" stories.  Its roots reach back to mid-November when my class of twenty-three Kindergarten children voted to accept a free rabbit as a classroom pet.  The six week old rabbit arrived on Wednesday and by Friday had been named "Thumper Fluffy Rabbit."

Thumper (for short) was a member of our class for only a few weeks before the Christmas break, but by observing the children's enthusiasm during that time, I knew that the new year would begin with a unit on "Rabbits".  The appearance of a large snowshoe hare in our school playground motivated me to include "Hares" in my theme.  In January I began introducing facts about hares and rabbits and set up a vet clinic in the dramatic play centre where Thumper was weighed, measured and examined.

It was at this point that I was introduced to the "Project Approach".  My initial reaction was that the children would no longer be the motivating force behind my planning;  I am used to teaching based on themes derived from the children's interests and I thought that this approach was more teacher-directed than I was comfortable with.  It was also suggested that the topic "Rabbits and Hares" was too narrow and should be broadened to increase participation from a greater variety of children.  After much thought and reflection, I decided that a project on pets would sufficiently broaden the subject area yet still enable me to build on the children's interest in rabbits and hares. Although different from my usual theme based methods, the project approach could mesh very well with my philosophy of teaching and learning. 

The children in my Kindergarten classroom are used to being given lots of choices, but do have selected "must do" activities. Creating a classroom filled with identical theme related crafts is something that I try to avoid, and as much as possible, the children are given complete freedom to make their own choices about what they will do and when they will do it.  There are no "teacher imposed" restrictions on the number of children in each centre and the children are not required to rotate around the centres.  I have a variety of centres available to the children and try to make them as child-directed as possible.  I do have teacher-directed group times where the children are expected to participate and contribute their thoughts and ideas; these times are when most systematic teaching takes place.  This kind of teaching-learning environment should work well with the project approach.

Phase I - Sharing our Stories

I was ready to implement the project approach in my classroom, but before introducing the topic to the children, I generated ideas for a web. 

Developing the web gave me a sense of direction and an idea of where the children might go with the topic. I introduced "Pets" by sharing a story from my childhood.  I recounted the experience of choosing my kitten, Fat Cat, from my Great Aunt's farm.  The story was brief but it engaged the children's interest.  As soon as I was done sharing, and even before, the children were waving their hands in the air and speaking out about their own pet experiences:

      A.  "My grandma, she had a pet, a cat, and it was getting older and older and

      then it died and she was pretty sad."

      J.  "My baby dog, and a big dog and two baby dogs and one dog had a sleep

      needle and then he died."

      C.  "My Grandma had a dog too, and he got sick and he got sleep medicine put

      in him too."

I had planned to stop after three stories, but I wasn't comfortable with the theme of death and the "one-upmanship" that was beginning to happen.  In order to stretch the children into exploring a greater variety of pet stories, I asked for some "happy stories too."

      K.  "I got a new dog from the SPCA."

      W.  "My friend Eric has a dog and he likes me and I always pet him when he

      comes over."

Now I was ready for the children to do some representations of their pets.  I tried to get them to think of "other ways to share their stories", but was met with silence.  I then shared information about some of the materials that were available in the room (clay, playdough, paint ...), this motivated them to create. 

One child drew her cat and told us about her drawing.  "He is this big," she said. 

I had clay models, drawings and a physical and verbal demonstration of how a dog stretches:

      "They sit down, first they put their back legs up tall and stretch their back...

      I know because my friend Colleen has a dog."

The following day I shared another Fat Cat story that generated more stories, drawings and the creation of a book.

I also tape-recorded the children's stories, wrote them on chart paper and then displayed them in the classroom.  Reflecting back, I could have re-read the stories to the children and then had them add illustrations to their work rather than simply post them around the room.

Another way I generated more interest in our topic, was to create a graph of "Real Pets and Wish Pets".  The children were asked to draw a picture and write the word (eg. dog, cat) of their real or wish pet on a small piece of paper during centre time.  The papers were gathered and on the following day, sorted and then graphed.  The graph and its results were shared and would later be an important part of our culminating activity - the creation of another graph based on our visitors' pets.

During this time of finding out what the children knew, small groups became interested in creating "pens" for Thumper.  In the beginning the children built using lots of trial and error with not much pre-planning and not much understanding of rabbit behavior.  As the class moved into Phase II, this particular aspect of building "pens", caught the interest of many of the children.

At this stage, I wanted the children to develop researchable questions about the topic.  To do this I utilized parent volunteers, instructing them to work with small groups of children and solicit any questions that the children might have about "pets".  The children's questions were recorded and then developed into another web.  This web was to guide our investigations in Phase II.

Phase II - Field Work and In-Depth Exploration of our Topic

This phase of the project easily took up 50 to 60% of our time and involved some very unusual field work and some familiar "expert" visitors (children with a parent and the family pet).  During this phase, I found that I had to always be anticipating what may happen next and to be thinking of what skills were needed for the children to successfully complete their work.  I was also continually referring back to my curriculum to ensure that as many aspects as possible were being "covered" by the project work.

The children had been observing and recording Thumper's behaviour in his cage as well as inside the various pens that they had created for him.  I wanted them to take these observational skills outside and use them to investigate the hare that was living in our school yard.  Unfortunately, we were never sure when the hare would be present so we had to improvise!  One day during recess I noticed some hare "poops" in the field and pointed them out to the children.  I "wondered" if they were the same as Thumper's "poops".  We decided to collect some and bring them into the classroom to be examined and compared with Thumper's "poops".  A small group of children dissected, examined, smelled and drew their findings focussing on the similarities and differences (I scribed their conversation), and then shared their discoveries with their classmates.  This investigation led to a regular gathering of "poops" everytime we went outside!

On another day, after a fresh dusting of snow, I noticed hare footprints on the tarmack.  The children were following them, noticing the size and direction of travel.  I suggested that some children may want to take a clipboard outside during recess and make some drawings of the footprints.  The suggestion was met with enthusiasm and a small group of children recorded their observations and returned with them to the classroom.  They wondered if Thumper's footprints were the same.  Rather than taking the rabbit outside, myself and a group of children collected snow in a plastic box, brought it into the classroom and placed Thumper inside.  The children observed his reactions and then made drawings of the footprints that he had left in the snow.  We now had a set of hare footprints and a set of rabbit footprints to measure using unifix blocks.  Again, the results of their findings were shared with the rest of the class and everybody became experts on finding hare footprints.  The comparisons of "poops" and footprints led to the listing of characteristics of hares and rabbits and the eventual creation of a Venn diagram highlighting their similarities and differences.

Our visiting experts were relaxed and comfortable fielding questions from the children.  I tried to collect questions before the visits but wasn't always successful in this endeavor (not enough time in the day was one of my biggest challenges).  During the visits children were given the choice of making an observational drawing; initially I had more volunteers than clipboards, but quickly found enough clipboards for all interested children.  I really began to notice that the quality of the children's work was improving, they were adding more detail and had a better understanding of what was meant by an observational drawing (no more flowers, grass and suns).

These visits led to the creation of a Venn diagram comparing similarities and differences of cats and dogs; specifically Ginger and Kokanee.  It also led to a discussion of the kinds of food that pets eat.

To further investigate kinds of pet food, we conducted a "taste test" on Thumper using apples and carrots.  The children predicted what kind of food Thumper would eat first and then recorded his behaviour.  The results were later graphed and shared with the group.  This particular activity used all kinds of math skills in a very meaningful and interesting way.

As the children's interest in "pen" building continued, I began to place higher expectations upon them.  It was no longer acceptable to simply build a pen.  The children now had to draw a plan of their pen, record how many blocks they would need, build the pen (continually referring to their plans), count the blocks and then place Thumper inside the pen and prove that he could not escape.  I took photographs of their work in process and had the children share their plans with the group.  I was amazed at the skills that had developed since their initial building attempts.  They now chose the blocks very carefully, didn't necessarily use all of the blocks, checked for escape routes before placing Thumper inside, organized their friends to help in the building process and experienced fewer disagreements because they could always refer back to their plans.

During the construction of the pens and the visits from the pets, the children became interested in pet toys.  Our student teacher shared how she had seen Thumper playing with a small hand mirror in his cage.  This led to an investigation to find toys for Thumper.  One child brought a toy from home, but Thumper was not interested.  At the time I didn't place much significance on this event , but the children were obviously impressed because this was an event that they chose to share during our culminating experience.  The children tried things like larger hand mirrors, paper constructions, stuffed animals and wooden blocks.

Phase II provided the children with time for more indepth exploration.  This was their opportunity to practise their skills of listening and speaking, observation and drawing, planning and construction, cooperation and problem-solving; to become real "experts" on their chosen topic.  They also gained some new understandings about how information could be represented (Venn diagrams) and shared with their classmates.  It was during this phase that the importance of daily sharing time became increasingly evident to me.  On the days that I managed to build in sufficient sharing time, the results were amazing!  I had children not normally interested in block play, drawing complicated pen plans and then working cooperatively with their peers to ensure that the actual construction reflected their plans.

As the weeks went by, I could see that the children were becoming less engaged in their project work and my classroom walls were completely covered with work from Phase I and Phase II.  This was my signal to begin planning for Phase III and our culminating event.

Phase III - The Culminating Event

I did the planning of our culminating event without the input of the children, next time I would involve them more in the planning process of who to invite and what they wanted to share.  Instead, I chose to invite the other morning Kindergarten class and our school principal.  I had the children address invitations to the guests inviting them to come and learn about our "Pet Project".  I then thought about the various things that the children had done during the project and chose ten different projects that I thought best represented the children's learning.  The projects were: Hare/Rabbit Venn Diagram, Pen Building, Pet Comparison, Wish Pets/Real Pets Graph, Thumper's Toys, Poop Comparison, Thumper's Favorite Food, Rabbit Puppet/ Thumper Comparison, Observational Drawing Demonstration and Footprint Comparison.  I wrote the ten projects on chart paper, explained what they were and then asked the children to tell me which topic they wanted to share with our guests, limiting the amount of children who could choose each topic - talk about teacher-directed!  Surprisingly, the majority of the children accepted this process and became quite excited about the event.

We spent the first part of our day preparing the ten centres; reviewing the information, setting up displays, preparing materials, building an actual pen based on one child's plan and readying ourselves for our guests.  Unfortunately, I didn't make my expectations clear and I had the children in my class thinking that they would take one guest around to each of the ten centres and explain it to them rather than being the expert at only one centre.  Actually, having each child responsible for only one guest may have worked just as well and might have kept some children more focussed on the task at hand.

I made other mistakes too!  There was too much time between the end of Phase II and the culminating event and many of the topics that I had chosen were no longer fresh in the children's minds.  I should have allowed all of the children more time to create "imaginative work, representing new information acquired in Phase II in original and personal ways".  Instead, there were only two children who had the opportunity to create something, a drawing of all of the toys that Thumper had played with.  I also should have ensured that the children who chose the various topics were actually experts on that topic, thankfully this wasn't a problem, but it could have been.  The biggest mistake that I made was taking too much control away from the children.  I was worried that our guests wouldn't be aware of the children's learning without me being in control of what was presented.

Even with all of my mistakes the Phase III culminating event was a success.  The children rose to the occasion and behaved like the experts that they were.  I had the children sharing the Real Pet/Wish Pet graph explain what the graph meant and then collect new information from our guests to be made into another graph on the following day.  There was one child who chased the principal down the hall because she had missed his centre of the Venn diagram comparing hares and rabbits.  Normally quiet children became quite animated when describing Thumper's favorite toys and one child was transformed into a teacher giving instructions on how to plan and build a successful rabbit pen!

The culminating event was a success, but at the time of writing this, Phase III was still not quite complete.  I needed to now sit down with each individual child and determine what work should stay in their school portfolio and what should go home.  The challenge would be to find the time to meet individually with a class of twenty-three children.

Reflective Evaluation

This was a positive experience for me and I am already in the process of planning for my next project, "Growing Things", which will probably take me into the month of June.  Although initially a little apprehensive, this method of teaching really does mesh well with my beliefs about young children and how they learn.  The project approach is about letting children take ownership of their learning and teachers relinquishing control and becoming facilitators rather than dispensers of knowledge.

The most challenging aspect of this approach was time and the need for additional adults in the classroom.  When working with emerging readers and writers, research requires adult assistance and field work must be done with an adult close at hand to take small groups of children out of the classroom.  Luckily I had a student teacher with me who was available to help with reading, writing and field work.  I also found that by using a tape-recorder I was able to record the children's conversations and then transcribe the information at a later time.  Finding enough time during the day for the children to share their work was really difficult because of the way our day is broken up with recess, library, gym and other time-tabled events.  To be most successful, I would need to carefully re-examine my daily routines and make some major adjustments to ensure that this necessary part of project work was able to occur on a daily basis.

I am also feeling that I should have spent more time reading the texts before jumping into my project.  If I had spent more time referring back to my texts, I think that the children's work would have been more indepth on a greater variety of pet related topics.  The first thing that I would have done is to make sure that I continually referred back to the questions that the children generated during our discussions in Phase I.  Many of their ideas were lost as we became focussed more and more on the rabbit and hare.  I probably should have generated a whole new list of questions specifically related to rabbits and hares or reminded the children of some of the other questions that they might wish to investigate.  I was also too quick to collect the children's work to mount and place up on the wall, I should have involved them more in choosing the work they wanted to share and to emphasize the importance of displaying only their "best" work.  I could have also encouraged the children to return to their work and make changes (Eg. revise their "pen" plans if they found their initial drawings to be inaccurate or unsuccessful) and therefore increase the opportunity for learning and understanding to take place.

When it came time to evaluating and assessing the children's learning, I relied heavily on the work that was displayed in the classroom and my anecdotal records.  I found that the criteria for evaluating quality that was suggested in the text, to be difficult to use with Kindergarten children.  Spending time developing rubrics specifically for this age group would be a useful exercise.

The biggest thing that I would change would be to do only project work or theme work in my room and to not attempt both at once.  I made this realization when a child in my classroom said to me, "Mrs. Shirvell, why are we learning about rabbits and Chinese New Year and dinosaurs all at the same time."  With project work you need to be willing to jump in with both feet and try not to cling too fiercely to the old, familiar way of doing things.

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Last revised: November 27, 1999