As I mentioned before, we are focusing our home projects around our Zoology studies this month.  Students have already begun bringing their projects and are always excited to share the information they have learned with their peers.  Home projects are a great transition into helping your child gather information from what they read.  Please help your child to read and gather information from books, articles, and the internet.  Make certain they are using words they know how to read and understand in their final written work and are not just copying information.  If your child is not yet fully reading, please read with them and have them dictate to you what they want to write.  Then have them trace over your writing for good practice.  Then, they may orally practice and present without notes.  This is much more interesting and makes their project their own.  Often times student will copy something from the internet and have a friend read it for them.  This defeats what a home project is meant to be.  Home projects need to have some sort of visual aid and a written paper equal to your child’s ability level.  Level 3’s will be encouraged to start typing their reports.  They will be expected to type on the SAGE test this year and this is good practice.

LEVEL 1’s -Please help your child find a vertebrate they are interested in.  Level 1’s are studying vertebrates all year long.  They have begun identifying the different classes of vertebrates.

LEVEL 2’s- Anything to do with the human body.  This can include nutrition, exercise, skeleton, brain, etc.  Make it fun!

LEVEL 3’s- Any invertebrate of their choice.

This home project is due by the end of the month.  Please make this a quality learning experience with your child.  We want this to be their work, but they will need some guidance.  It isn’t a project you complete in one night, it should be a process, and an enjoyable one.

I have posted the all of the home projects for the year on the blog under pages or you can access it here.  If you have questions about home projects, please feel free to ask me during conferences.