This was our first internet project but it certainly won’t be our last!  We began our quest for knowledge with several different webquests.  Students learned how to research and write down important or interesting facts they would need later in their creations.  Each student kept a research journal of questions, information and answers they found through researching.  We included a picture on the first slide of our rap PowerPoint.  We are holding up our research folders.  On the right is Mrs. Dawson our fantastically helpful technology teacher.  Thanks Mrs. Dawson! 

These journals came in handy when it was time to work on the PowerPoints.  They used the information recorded there to make their presentations accurate as well as wonderful.  Their journals also included a K-W-L chart which was updated throughout our research time.  We were lucky enough to have live ladybugs grow from eggs to beautiful adult ladybugs right in our classroom.  The last day of our ladybug project we set them free in our playground happy and healthy.

Students were able to choose from many different activities to show what they had learned.  These included writing songs, stories, poems or informational papers as well as drawing sketches or labeled diagrams of ladybugs and/or their lifecycles.  Since our research began the week before our spring break some students even chose to continue their research at home!  Our bulletin board outside the room was used to add what we created as the weeks went by.  It was great to see other students coming by to check out our projects.  We ended up with a great variety of projects and more knowledge about ladybugs than we ever thought we would have!

Each student in the class created their own PowerPoint using their research journals and then worked in groups to combine the best into one per group. 

This was a first for many of them and they quickly learned how to problem solve together in their groups to create the best PowerPoint possible.  From there we took the best slide from each group to create one whole class PowerPoint.  We worked hard to complete the audio for each slide because we thought the PowerPoints with audio were our favorites while we were doing our own researching.

Our class also wrote a rap about ladybugs.  Dana, Laurie and Kim got us started and we finished it off together.  We decided to write the words on a PowerPoint and record ourselves performing the rap.  Listen to see how it turned out!