Here is a glimpse into a Grade 1/2 classroom in which a project on 'the rain' is in progress. It is a cross-section, so to speak, of a project. Much has gone on before this point and more is to come in the days, maybe weeks that follow. The high involvement of the children described here is not attained without some weeks of development.

The children are working in groups and on their own, in different parts of the classroom and in the yard just outside. In the corner of the room is a dramatic play area which has been set up as a store. There is a big notice the children have made which says, "THE RAIN STORE." Two children are arranging raincoats, hats, boots, and umbrellas on hangers and shelves. Another child is discussing prices with a 'cashier' at the little checkout counter.

It has rained earlier in the day. By the window in the room, one child is writing a poem about the rain. She has first made a list of rain words, 'falling, drops, pattering, windows, grey, puddles.. Three children are painting pictures of rainy scenes. Two children are drawing chalk lines around puddles in the yard and measuring the distance across the puddles in various directions. The puddles are drying up and at half hour intervals these children draw new chalk lines recording the evaporation rate of the water during the morning. They also draw the puddles' decreasing circumferences on paper so that they will be able to tell the other children of their work at the class meeting at the end of the morning.

The teacher is working with six children at a table in the middle of the classroom. There are jars, bowls, elastic bands, pitchers of water, and several different kinds of material and fabric on the table. The children are experimenting to see which materials let the water through faster and which materials seem to be the most water proof. The teacher is encouraging close observation of the effect of the water on the fabrics. One of the children is writing down words used to describe what is happening. Another child has predicted that the water would best be kept out by very thick fabric. Testing that hypothesis leads to the further study of absorbency. Someone investigates in a larger bowl how the more absorbent fabrics behave when squeezed and immersed in the water. The children are fascinated by the way the water is soaked up by a thick woolly mitten.

Several books on rain, water, and the weather, have been borrowed from the library. A group of children sitting in the book area are reading to one another from the books and discussing what they are reading about. On a table nearby, there is an umbrella. Four children are drawing the umbrella with pencils and felt tip pens.

At the end of the morning, before the children leave the room for lunch they review the work they have been doing. One child tells of the book he was reading, another talks about events in "the rain store." One of the group involved in the science activities with the teacher tells of their findings. The children measuring the shrinking puddles in the yard talk about their drawings. Later in the day there will be time for further review and for the story the teacher has planned to read about a family that gets caught in a rain storm while having a picnic by a lake.

In order to understand what has happened before the point at which this story could be told it might be helpful to take a closer look at the development of a project over time. There is a sequential planning framework which can be followed to help teachers plan for an extended study.