Kindergarten Wonders About Animals: From Fiction to Facts

The kindergarten students have been fascinated by animals since they walked through the classroom doors in September. Did you know that we have had lion and panther families playing in the dramatic play area, animals floating on icebergs to get to Pennsylvania and many magnatile habitats to house precious stuffed animals from home?

Animals floating on icebergs to PA

Farm Day at a Step Up Academy           

 Just by coincidence, A Step Up Academy, invited us to join them for a special Farm Day to visit some animals up close. On that morning our children were seen loving the animals full force- from baby chicks to ducks to a baby calf. The gentle love and respect for the animals was a warm experience to witness. The kindergarten's obvious love of animals, vivid imaginations and creative, cooperative animal play, easily showed us where our next study exploration was taking us- the wonderful animal kingdom! 

Kindergarten Animal Study Web

                                         

How would we move the students from the fiction world of animals to facts? Actually, this was very simple for passions were clearly evident as the students were asked two questions:

What do you know about animals?

What do you wonder about animals?

The initial list of already known facts and questions was long. Every day the list continued to grow as the children added facts that they had already learned from books, science class, a nature show and their own observations. This brainstorm of sorts lets us know about some of the background knowledge the students have and allows us to think of all the possibilities that may evolve and what the students really want to know about animals. 

We used our problem solving skills to make a visual web of individual ideas that connected with broader ideas. It seems as if our kindergarten animal enthusiasts are wondering about the types of animals, food, habitats, animal babies, what they look like and what they can do, and how we can help animals. Some deeper questions arose out of what to do when we find an injured animal and why some people are not always kind to animals. Our animal researchers also have very big hearts, and it will be interesting to see what we do to answer some of our wonderings.

        

           Adding finishing touches to a tiger costume

Trying on a baby chick hat

The next step of moving from fictional thoughts about animals to factual work appeared when the class decided to be animals for our annual Halloween parade. Each student selected an animal that they were interested in learning more about. Using non-fiction books, the students looked for details about ear and tail shapes, fur or feather colors, and other facts about their animal's appearance. The creative and realistic looking animal costumes they created were amazing!

Next week, after the animal menagerie parades, our kindergarten researchers will begin their factual work to create individual animal books. This project will combine the love of books our students share with an authentic opportunity to read and write about animals using non-fiction books. All good animal researchers also need to do some field work so a trip to the Elmwood Park Zoo will be necessary! Stay tuned as the facts begin to come together to answer our animal wonderings and as new questions will certainly arise as our study progresses.

       

A few of our initial research animal topics