Teachers Network: Adaptor Grants: RESPONSIBILITY: Caring for Classroom Virtual Pets

Responsibility: Caring for Classroom Virtual Pets

Adapted By:
Jessica Gold

Ms. Gold is the Speech and Language Pathologist at P.S. 35. She has been working for 2 years. Ms. Gold serves the general education and special education students in grades K-4. During intervention, her focus is on improving receptive and expressive language skills, narative development, phonological awareness, and articulation.

P.S. 35
Bronx, NY

Original Project by Cindy Lewis

Modifications

Being the speech therapist and not seeing the children all together at the same time in a classroom, but rather individually and in small groups, I had to modify the unit by working on the project in many steps and at different levels. There was also a lot of repetition of lessons as I had to present it many different times to different groups. For the older or higher level children, there were different expectations and standards from those of the younger or lower level children. I also had to break down the tasks into small parts that would be able to be completed in a 30 minute session. For the final project, instead of the children choosing any pet they would prefer to research, the children chose the breed of dog they would prefer and completed the essay on that.

Instructional Objectives

1. Students will identify and use voting as a way to make decisions.

2. Students will discuss data using appropriate terms more than/less than.

3. Students will construct a bar graph displaying recorded data.

4. Students will listen to and discuss stories being read aloud.

5. Students will generate predictions about story outcomes using available information.

6. Students will retell stories orally including necessary story grammar elements.

7. Students will identify characters in the story and produce sentences to describe them.

8. Students learn to compromise.

9. Students will participate in group planning and discussion.

10. Students will generate questions to research on the Internet.

11. Students will be introduced to the Internet.

Technology Integration

The children were introduced to the Internet. We used it to find many things. First, we looked up titles of books about our chosen pet which was a dog. Then we used it to research and see pictures of different breeds of dogs. Finally, we researched everything we would need to know about dogs so that we would be prepared for our new pet!

Assessment

Students participated in a survey casting a vote for their favorite pet. Students completed a bar graph survey including the questions relative to the data collected. Students had to identify and explain the reason for choosing their favorite character in a given story, write a report on important facts relevant to their chosen pet, present an oral report using the written report as an outline, and demonstrate ability to work cooperatively in a small group.

Tips for Teachers

I recommend leaving plenty of time to complete the project, especially if you are only able to see small groups of children at a time.

Student Work Samples

Click on each thumbnail to see a full-screen version.