Dang if I haven't been productive lately...

I feel pretty proud of myself as far as the To-Do list challenge.  I have managed to finish my library organization. I also got the kids' desks cleaned up and the hillbilly plastic shelves working their magic.  We have finished our peek-a-boo posters.  I added a bunch of neat things to my retelling center, and found that the kids are enjoying it a whole lot- especially with these dinosaur hats I found at the Dollar Tree.  Got half way done with working on some math center organization too.  So I am counting this week as a success. Even though I completely slacked off on the testing and will have to haul butt tomorrow and next week.  Ah well, I am at peace with my mismanagement of time for now.


So, Peek-A-Boo Posters. First off, they really work for any sort of report you want to do, and could actually be used for all sorts of things as well, which I will ramble on about after the pics.  I came up with this idea years ago when I was teaching fourth.  You just need a half size poster board, index cards, tape, and coloring supplies.


I used five cards, because I had five topic areas I wanted the kids to research for their animal.  Habitat, Food, Appearance, Life Cycle, and an Amazing Fact.  You put a strip of tape under the card so it flips up and down like a window or door.


What the kids need to understand is to draw their animal as big as possible to cover up the poster.  And also color in background.  You do all the drawing and coloring OVER TOP of the closed cards.  This way, when you flip them up, there is a perfect white space left beneath to write their research findings.


I did a sample of a panda bear to show them what I was looking for as far as drawing large and then where to put their research.  I put topic labels on the top portion of the card when it was flipped up, and wrote the facts underneath.

 All in all, the research varied on the level of student, but they got to try research in books, going to the library, and also using a computer to find facts.  This one below is from one of my girls who loves vampires- she picked the bat as her animal to research.

I also left a ruler size white space border on the side of each poster so that I can bind them all together into one big book.  We divided up the animals by habitat, so I had four kids on each of Forest, Tundra, Pond, Grasslands, and Desert.  I had the kids also make two- one that I could keep and the other for them to take home.

As far as other uses for a peek-a-boo poster- the sky is the limit.  It works for any topic of research.  You could also use it for math, drawing a large picture on a specific theme, and then writing story problems underneath the cards where they would have to look at the picture to get information.  You can use it in language- displaying parts of speech, writing fictional stories (just number the flaps so they know which card to flip up in what order), ABC poster books (each page is a letter, the drawings are of items that begin with the letter and then poems or facts are written under the cards), riddle books, etc.

Some kids finished earlier than others (isn't that always the case) and they liked the idea enough that they asked if they could do another animal.  Plenty of poster board, plenty of index cards- let the research roll!