On the first day, I introduced the project by talking about our past animal stories and reading the book, "Mama Built a Little Nest." This book was perfect because it has a lot of different types of birds from different habitats. We talked about the different types of nests; cavity, platform, cup, pendulum. Our project was focusing on two of the nests, platform and cup.
On the second day, I told students a story about a bird that got lost during the weekend storm and landed on our school campus. I gave each group a bird, an eagle or hummingbird, and assigned a captain. Students made a collage with pictures I printed from the internet and copied from our stories. As groups were building their collages and talking about the characteristics of their nest, I talked with groups and wrote the items they would need to search for. Then we went on our nature walk. I gave each student a pair of plastic tweezers to act as the beak of the birds. The captains carried the collection bags.
My BTSA mentor came into observe our project and she walked in as we were walking back from our nature walk. Students started building their nests, using the collages as a guide. The building was the best part of the project! Every single student was engaged and participating, even my shy students! And everyone was on task, which just goes to show that it was a real meaningful learning experience. I heard lots of great collaborating and academic language. Students were discussing the items they collected and where they needed to be glued down (we were using glue since we didn't have mud). They were discussing the shape their nest needed to be; tall, round, flat, big, small.
I heard a lot of reflecting and once students started building, they were talking about items they wish they would've gotten more of. The time flew by and before we knew it, it was time for recess. I let my students use their recess to collect more items, now that they had a better idea of what they needed (No tweezers this time because all the other classes were out there too). They were thrilled to give up their recess to work on their project, I couldn't believe it!
After round 2 of their item collection, they got back to work on building their nest. When our nests were finally finished, I moved their poster boards to the hallway counters to dry. My students had PE, which was perfect because my BTSA mentor and I had time to discuss the project. We talked about PBL projects and how they are a lot of planning but well worth it, if you can connect content all together. For my class, we had all the animal stories from the previous unit and our field trip which made a perfect platform for a PBL project. I was so nervous for the management aspect and staying on a time schedule. I think these uncertainties come with the planning of a PBL project. Every project will be different and I had to just do it with the kids and figure out what would work for us.
On the third day, we made a concluding video. I filmed each group for about 30 seconds while they presented their nest to the class. They talked about what type of nest it was, what items they used, and why their nest was perfect for their bird. I used the VivaVideo app (it's free and I downloaded it onto my phone) to put all the clips together. Of course, we had to watch our video together and my students were so excited to see it!
Overall, a very successful project. It was wonderful to hear all the academic language and see students collaborating. It was a lot of planning but it was so worth it, I can't wait to plan the next PBL project!
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