Collaborative Lesson Using Website in K

I'm really excited about something new (design-wise) that I tried today in an ESL K Social Studies lesson (content was symbols of VA.)

In the classroom I gave students a bit of background knowledge about some of Virginia's symbols: state bird - cardinal, state tree - dogwood, state seal/flag and capital. We discussed them and students made connections. They all thought a cardinal was a woodpecker and called a dogwood a dogtree but... these are not everyday terms. I was really pleased with how quickly they caught on. Once they had the vocabulary down, we hit up the computer lab for our collaborative Virginia poster project.

In the lab I brought up the following website: http://www.fcps.edu/CanterburyWoodsES/Finished%20Pages/techprojects/vasymbols/vasymbols.html

Since the main page was all photos, it was perfect for a Kindergarten lesson (non-readers.) As a class we browsed the site. They were looking at photos to get ideas for their Virginia state poster (white roll paper/crayons.) Some of them clicked on the links under the photos (on their own) and were viewing paragraphs of information about the symbol. I was impressed that some Kindergartners were so digitally literate to be able to use links and then get navigated back to the main page. That will be a future lesson.

I thought to group them/name groups by state symbol (6 groups) : Dogwoods, cardinals etc... We browsed the above website as a whole class. Each group had one computer with the website displayed and while some were looking at it for ideas, other group members were drawing. They worked in groups of 3 on the computer lab carpeted floor. Not many classes do collaborative projects (on the floor) of our computer lab - in fact I've never seen roll paper in there before. The students were USING information from a website. Laying, talking and working simultaneously...

It was just so cool not having them quietly on earphones in the lab. Instead I could get a better sense of what they had learned by listening to them talk about the content and asking them what they were drawing.

I think my Ah HA moment was today. I tried out a lesson design that I honestly thought it would be way over their heads.

In fact they rose to the occasion, did a wonderful job collaborating and personalizing their posters. It was just fun for me and a good computer lab experience for them. I learned that trial and error are the only way to change my ideas of what I can do & what my students are truly capable of. I will take a few photos of these posters and add them to my blog - IF I have time this week.