The Leveled Research Library
Welcome to the Research Monster!
This blog is about an elementary teacher's experience and ideas with teaching research in the classroom. The information in this blog has been implemented, but not evaluated.
Why is it a research monster?
When I was thinking of names to call my blog, I kept coming back to how researching in my first grade classroom grew from 8 students to 20 students. With all these reading levels of students researching, my research books started to level themselves out. My writing center during reading centers had turned into prime real estate in my classroom and some days was spilling over into another center. My students were addicted to reading, researching, and writing. I had two buckets of research books neatly organized for all students to choose from and I had a space cleared out for these buckets to be accessible to the students. I was ordering books from the library daily. This little project for 8 students turned into a monster of a project that slowly encompassed my entire class and my students just couldn't get enough of this activity and I could barely keep up with their interests. In essence, a "research monster" appeared in my classroom, but in the best way. :-) When you looked at this activity at work, it was a teacher’s dream come true. Students writing independently, conferencing with each other and the teacher, and wanting to complete the writing process and then do it all over again. A simple activity to challenge a group of students to improve upon their reading comprehension turned into so much more, a “research monster”.
This blog is about an elementary teacher's experience and ideas with teaching research in the classroom. The information in this blog has been implemented, but not evaluated.
Why is it a research monster?
When I was thinking of names to call my blog, I kept coming back to how researching in my first grade classroom grew from 8 students to 20 students. With all these reading levels of students researching, my research books started to level themselves out. My writing center during reading centers had turned into prime real estate in my classroom and some days was spilling over into another center. My students were addicted to reading, researching, and writing. I had two buckets of research books neatly organized for all students to choose from and I had a space cleared out for these buckets to be accessible to the students. I was ordering books from the library daily. This little project for 8 students turned into a monster of a project that slowly encompassed my entire class and my students just couldn't get enough of this activity and I could barely keep up with their interests. In essence, a "research monster" appeared in my classroom, but in the best way. :-) When you looked at this activity at work, it was a teacher’s dream come true. Students writing independently, conferencing with each other and the teacher, and wanting to complete the writing process and then do it all over again. A simple activity to challenge a group of students to improve upon their reading comprehension turned into so much more, a “research monster”.
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