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Pre-Project
Teachers brainstormed about the topic and represented in the form of a web
Senior Kindergarten
Our Project Journey with Children:“Animal Kingdom”
Children possess a natural connection with the fascinating world of Animal Kingdom, and often express their curiosity about animals through stories, drawings and dialogues. Other Animals are an important part of our ecosystem, and it is important to develop an understanding of the animal world in young children. We chose the topic of ‘Animal Kingdom’ as a focus of our in-depth project study to build on children’s natural curiosity and to enhance their understanding and sensitivity towards the world of animals.
Phase I
Beginning the Project
Understanding children’s prior knowledge:
The preliminary planning for the project started by teachers brainstorming about the topic and creating the teacher’s web, thereby visualizing various directions for the project, tentative places for field trips and other explorations.
Through group discussions, children started sharing their pre-existing knowledge about animals. This was initiated through a fun auditory discrimination game- “Guess the sounds of Animals”. Children were very excited to share the names of Animals they heard in the audio. They also shared varied information about animals, such as their homes, food habits, young ones, etc.
Apart from group discussions, we encouraged children to represent their prior knowledge about animals through different mediums like clay models, drawings, stories and rhymes etc. We noticed that many children shared their views about the importance of animals.
Kaira : “Fish live in water. Lion lives in a den. Tiger lives in a cave. Birds live in nests.”
Ekansh: ”Look Ma’am I have made this tiger and it has stripes and tail. It is orange in colour and it has black stripes.”
Aarya : “Dog barks when unknown people come.”
Vedant: “Quills of porcupine are very sharp.”
Harit's drawing depicting his understanding about Animal Kingdom. ----------------------->>>>>
Teachers noted children's response in Coggle in form of a web
Phase II
Developing the Project
Exploration and Investigation based on children’s interest:
We reflected on the responses of children from Phase I and planned for further explorations based on children’s common interests, misconceptions and questions. As a part of the investigations, children observed videos which showed them the classification of animals by habitat (Animals living on land, Aquatic Animals, Arboreal, Arial, etc.), their eating habits (Carnivores, Herbivores, Omnivores, Scavengers) and their types (Mammals, Birds, Insects, Pisces, etc.).
Through their research, children also identified two main categories of animals - Vertebrates and Invertebrates. Children visited Kankaria zoo/Science city Aquarium with their parents to observe some animals closely and know more about them. Many questions of children about animals were answered by research on the search engine- “Kiddle.co”. All the while, teachers observed and noted down children’s inclination and interests for planning further in-depth study.
Sr. kg A Children showed interest in Aquatic Animals:
In Sr.kg A, many children made clay models of fish, jellyfish and octopus out of their own choice. The questions which children raised also helped us to understand that many of them were interested in knowing more about aquatic animals. They were curious to know more about octopus, jellyfish and how and where fish live. They asked :
Aaradhya: “What do fish eat? What is the food of an octopus?”
Vihaan: ”What are the different types of fish? Colour of jellyfish.
Salwin:”I have seen fish in aquarium.”
We helped children to learn more about aquatic animals by researching on the search engine “kiddle.co” along with them. Children got clarity about fish having fins and streamlined bodies, octopuses having nine brains and three hearts to jellyfish emitting light. It was fun discovering the interesting facts about animals like octopus, turtle and penguin.
Kush: “Dolphin bahut samajhdar hoti hai”. Octopus zehreela hota hai and samudra mein rehta hai.”
Nandini: ”Octopus lives in the ocean and has blue blood”.
Children weaved stories and rhymes on fish and turtles.
Salwin:“Ma’am I visited the Science city aquarium in Ahmedabad where I saw many colorful fish, stingray fish and an octopus. We will make an aquarium”.
We organized a virtual field trip to an Aquarium shop and an interaction with its shopkeeper. Through this virtual trip, children saw different types of fish, the food they eat, and how they are taken care of. Children were keen to make an aquarium as seen in the virtual field trip!
With our guidance, children started visualizing their aquarium model and created a design blueprint for the same.
Aarav: “I will make a fish aquarium in a rectangle shape and blue colour for water.”
Aaradhya: “I will use glitter paper cut out animals, I will also use cardboard.”
Sr KG B children were more inclined towards knowing about ‘Physical features of animals’
Some questions asked by children:
Vyoam: “Why are animals different ?”
Viha: “Why do animals have four legs ?”
Adveya: “I want to know what Animals eat?”
Hriyaan: “Why do birds live in nests and snakes in holes?”
Veditha: “Why do lizards walk on the wall and not fall down?”
Vyom:“I want to know what do animals eat when they are sick?”
They observed physical features and other information closely while researching through “kiddle.co” search engine and through Encyclopedia.
Some riddles made by children:
Rihaan:“I have long legs and a long neck and I have spots and I live in grasslands. Who am I ?”
Riva:“I can live both on land and in water and I hop and I do trow trow. Who am I?”
Children showcased varying interests for their in-depth explorations, and they researched further based on their own interests. Children also applied and enhanced their mathematical skills. For example- They observed similarities and differences between animals and represented it mathematically. A live streaming from Kankaria Zoo gave children an opportunity to not only see some animals closely but to also interact with a veterinary doctor- Dr. Shah. Children also interacted with the Zoo keeper and the Zoo guide.
They came to know about the care that is taken when animals are sick. The guide also shared about the time intervals when the animals are fed. After that visit, children were interested in researching about tigers and in creating its model.
Sr KG C children narrowed down their focus of interest on 'Wild animals'
In Sr KG C children also shared a few common queries:
Aarya :“Camel ek saath itna pani kaise pi sakta hai?”
Siddhansh :“I want to know more about black panther.”
After general exploration of different animals and virtual field trips, many children were interested in wild animals. The interaction with the veterinary doctor (Dr.Shah) at Kankaria Zoo particularly impacted children and their interest towards wild animals.
Children also researched Reptiles and came to know how they are conserved, especially Indian Snakes. They also came to know interesting facts about animals such as the female elephant doesn’t have a tusk, only male lion has mane and some of their curious questions were also answered
As children constructed more knowledge, it started reflecting in their stories, rhyme, riddles and art works. They also started using a lot of new vocabulary related to the animal kingdom.
Sr kg D from the very beginning showed inclination towards “Extinct and Endangered animals”:
Some questions raised by children:
Siddhanth: “How long is the anaconda snake?”
Manasvi: “How long are the tentacles of jellyfish”?
The class as a whole did online research on some extinct and endangered animals.
Through an interaction with Dr.Kiran Ahir, a zoologist, they got to know more about the extinct and endangered animals. They gained knowledge about the basic types of extinction like mass extinction and background extinction. They also learned that researchers are working to recreate mammoths with fossils and DNA as we have favourable conditions for them to survive.
They explored various animals like pandas, dinosaurs, quagga, dodo, mammoth, titanoboa etc. through videos and the search engine “Kiddle.co” as a group in the virtual class. They also browsed through encyclopedias and other books at home to discover more facts.
Visualising the Model
Children were keen to utilize their learning and represent it in the form of models. They now started visualizing the details of the model- size, shape, material to be used, process, etc. They created individual drawings and clay models to represent their ideas.
Unlike previous projects, due to the online mode of learning, children missed working in a group for creating a common model but their individual model making was equally innovative and interactive.They discussed the problems and challenges they faced while making the model and gave various solutions to their peers in the virtual class.
Sr kg A-Aquarium
Salwin: ”Ma’am this is the blueprint and the model is also the same. I have used stickers, a cardboard box and put plastic on it.”
Sr kg B-Tiger
Manya: “Hum thread use kar sakte hai tiger ke mouch banane ke liye.”
Sr kg C-Wild Animals
Mishika: “I will use clay, box, blue slime.”
Avan: “I want to make a lion with bottle caps. Rocky den.”
Sr kg D-Endangered and Extinct animals
Akishi: “We can use cardboard as base and we can use foil to make meteors.”
Ishanvi: “I will use clay to make pandas and we can also use real bamboo.”
Phase III
Concluding the Project
To culminate the project, children children recalled the whole learning journey of the project and reflected on their likes and dislikes from the project through whole class sharing and discussions.
Parigya: ” I liked the stories, asking riddles and making stories”.
Kahan: ”Field trip and making an aquarium was new to me. I enjoyed all the rhymes”.
Rishvika: ”I liked making the model of the tiger. It was fun.”
Tavishi: “I liked doing the thumb printing activity and clay activity”
Manveer: “Freeze dance kiya tha vo acha laga. Aquarium gaya tha vo bhi acha laga. Blueprint vala drawing banana bhi acha laga, clay se khelna acha laga.”
Vivaan Ranpariya: “Bamboozle games, model and thumb painting and riddles. Drawing sessions making all models. I like all the things, I like to exercise.”
Shravi : “The puppy that was not sleeping. I liked that story, the clay models. I liked to make the zoo. I don’t like the frog drawing the life cycle.”
Once the model was ready, they also shared the challenges they faced while making the model and how they resolved the same. They were happy to share about their project journey with each other.They also made an invitation card to invite others to visit their work.
We had a lot of fun planning and pursuing the Animal Kingdom project with children. The project provided many opportunities for children to use a variety of skills such as critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and helped reinforce basic skills and concepts across Maths and Language. This project, despite being a remote learning project, left a lasting impression on children and us teachers.
Senior KG teachers:
Senior KG A-Deepali Jain, Kajal Shah
Senior KG B-Meghna Mehta, Rekha Menon
Senior KG C-Khushali Trivedi, Krishnakali Dey
Senior KG D-Divya Tibrewala,Paanisha Patel
Academic Coordinator: Pratibha Todawal
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