The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

Penguins and Polar Bears: 1st Grade Research

Happy day, friends! I just wanted to quickly stop by and share an amazing way we’ve started doing research this week, as well as some ideas for learning about penguins, polar bears, arctic, tundra, and all things cold.Please note, I do understand that penguins and polar bears reside on different continents…as do my kids. We’ve looked at the World Map, we’ve talked about the differences. I know. But with the 100th Day next week, then, MLK the following week – we’ve run out of ‘winter weeks’ to learn with. Therefore, penguin and polar bear week it is! 🙂

Laying Our Foundation

We started our week with a quick pre-assessment. Split into 5 groups, students visited each of the questions (set on a table) and wrote/illustrated their ideas about the true/false phrases below. At the end of the week, we revisited the assessment and corrected our thinking!

This video from BrainPop was a great way to start talking about what the Arctic was and what animals live there. We then looked at a map of the world comparing the Arctic (polar bears) with Antarctica (penguins).

Integrating Our Learning

Throughout the week, we read many awesome books together during snack, as well as, stole small moments to read with friends (for morning work, at the very end of the day, and as a choice during Read to Self/Partner). We LOVED the book I Wonder Why Penguins Can’t Fly. It was perfect for answer our most common Arctic questions!
From a funded Donors Choose project, our 1st grade team receives a set of 26 magazines each week and we split them between our 4 classes so we all have a small-group set! As a guided reading warm-up, we used Scholastic News’ magazines (penguins one morning and polar bears the next) to talk about nonfiction text features. Did I mention these magazines have THE best pictures???

Penguin Comparisons

During theme one afternoon, we took time to compare ourselves to an emperor penguin. We explored a ruler and yard stick (not Common Core, but still something very real-world). To create the penguin, I snagged some bulletin board paper from our teacher workroom. Then, I projected a penguin from Google on my SMART Board. Then, I traced on the colored paper and cut it out. Pro-tip: after you have the image the right size, turn off the SMART Board so it isn’t touchable. That way you can trace right then and there! After comparing our size, we make Venn Diagrams comparing/contrasting penguins with humans. We looked at factors such as size, diet, habitat, our young, how we move, etc!

Hands-On Learning: How Does Blubber Protect Animals?

Throughout the week, we were amazed at just how cold the North and South Poles can get. Living in Kentucky, it’s incredibly difficult to imagine what -76 degrees feels likes, and even more difficult to imagine living there. Over and over, I heard – how can animals live in such cold places?? Therefore, a blubber experiment was in order! To make the experiment manageable, a parent volunteer joined our class, so we could split into 2 groups. Thank goodness for volunteers!

We started the experiment by placing our hand in a bowl of ice water for 5 seconds (long enough for students to feel cold but not long enough to hear complaining). We then went back to our desks and wrote about about the first phase using a recording log from my Tundra Resource.

Then, we came back to the bowl of Arctic Waters trying on the blubber glove. It was SO precious to see my friends reactions when they could feel nothing! It was definitely magic. After all of our friends had a chance to try, we had a great class conversation – How do polar bears and penguins stay warm? We decided that the blubber protects these animals from the cold water, just like it protected our hands. For the polar bear and penguin, they may not even know how cold the water actually is! 🙂

Polar Research

Now, this experiment answered just one of our questions about all things cold and we had MANY!
So, we made our 1st venture into research. This is a Common Core skill for 1st graders, but one that it really hard to put into practice….I mean our kids are 7. Still, it needed to happen, so this week I channeled my kids’ curiosity. Knowing that my friends were not ready for prime-time research, we used QR Code research mats. Using 6 websites and videos I pre-read and pre-watched, I linked them on the below mat. Then, using iPads with a partner, students explored the resources I included and took notes about their learning.

Using iPads, students scanned the QR Codes (in any order) using i-Nigma (our preferred QR code scanner).
Our research was the perfect time to look at Live Cameras, videos of the animals in their natural habitats. Typically, I would do these things whole-group on the SMART Board, but this was a great time to release students and get some ‘research’ in. 🙂 (Note – any YouTube videos I included, I did use a SafeShare link to make sure they were ad-free and safe!)
National Geographic Kids is a great website for student research. They include lots of pictures integrated with a manageable amount of information. Plus, at the bottom of each animal’s webpage, they’ve included videos of the animals in action (living in groups, what they eat, playing with one another, etc.)
This video from the BBC is so sad, but provides a very non-political snapshot of polar bears’ warming habitats. Plus, the video of the polar bear swimming is stunning.
As students spent time exploring the resources, they took notes on this recording log. I did not focus their research (this time), and loved seeing what they thought was important/interesting. It was also a great lesson in restating and not copying from a website/video.

You can grab these resources from Drop Box by clicking photo below. Honestly, it was a SMASHING success…smoother than I could have ever imagined – for real! I really feel like QR Code Mats are the way to go. It gives students the independence of research and exploration, but in a very safe and manageable way. We’ll definitely make this a monthly habit for the remaining year!

Well, friends, it was definitely an awesome week. You can snag these resources for your own classroom here on Teachers Pay Teachers in my Exploring the Tundra resource.The highlight was the research. My kids were so excited to explore and learn, and using the QR Code mats made it so simple. Have you used QR Code Mats before? What other tips do you have for research in the primary grades? I’d love to hear your ideas!

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Comments

  1. Sheri Ryan says

    January 18, 2015 at 1:13 am

    Love the QR code mat. They still have the choice of where to get their information but it's from websites you know and can trust rather than a random google search.
    Thanks for the great ideas 🙂
    Sheri.

    Reply

    • Kate says

      January 18, 2015 at 9:30 pm

      Of course, Sheri! Especially in 1st grade, they definitely aren't ready to discern a Google search, and I would be SO afraid to see what might come up. 😉

      Reply

  4. Easy Teaching Tools says

    January 22, 2015 at 7:05 am

    You inspired me again! I was just blogging about Chatter Pix and was browsing your blog to link your post. These QR mats are amazing and are something I WILL start doing with my kiddos. Seems like 1st grade is also a perfect fit for you!
    Kristen

    Reply

    • Kate says

      January 28, 2015 at 2:00 am

      Hi April! Thank you so much. I'm planning on doing a math for each month. It keeps us researching and gives us some hands-on technology practice. As we use them, I'll make sure to share!

      Reply

  6. tstar says

    March 10, 2016 at 4:27 am

    I love the QR mat. We are researching sea animals I have made some ThingLinks to store videos, websites and information about sea animals so my students can access the info on their iPads. Here is a link to my sea turtle ThingLink. https://www.thinglink.com/scene/646187209774333952 Thanks for sharing your research ideas. I love researching with first graders, they are so curious!

    Reply

  8. Lori says

    December 13, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    Thanks for the freebie! My students and I love using QR codes but I haven’t spent the time to create my own. I love using it to research.

    Reply

  9. Amy Allen says

    December 28, 2016 at 9:23 pm

    Always a fan of your work. Thank you so much for sharing this for free. I am so excited to use it when we go back!

    Reply

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