Jellyfish-ing

Lately I've been having quite the love affair with thinking maps and this time of year is perfect for us to use them to really push our writing to the next step and use all the skills we've learned this year.  Our theme right now is "A World of Animals," which my team and I have split up into sea animals, jungle animals, and desert animals.  Last week was sea animals.  We watched tons of videos from United Streaming and YouTube, and filled out thinking maps galore.  Then, we used the maps to write on our very own jellyfish...just in time for Open House, of course!

We started with a KWL and then watched videos.  After watching the videos, we labeled the parts of a jellyfish.

Then, we filled out a brace thinking map to remember what we learned.

During centers, students made their own maps to use for writing.

Finally we made jellyfish and published our writing.