Research skills are super important, but when you teach second grade hybrid like I do, they can be quite a challenge to teach. It’s difficult to find age-appropriate digital research materials when doing a random search. Most of the available material is far above my students’ reading level and isn’t necessarily kid-friendly. Fortunately, I found a great resource. Check out how I made these animal reports happen using age-appropriate research tools with my second graders:
Setting the Stage
My students are obsessed with animals, so I decided to do in-class animal research projects using PebbleGo, a research tool specifically designed for K-3 students. For our first introduction, I displayed PebbleGo on my interactive whiteboard and modeled how to navigate through the program.
My demonstration included how to: go through each tab of information per topic, utilize the read-aloud audio, enlarge photographs, watch videos, listen to the corresponding animal sounds, and view the range map to see where animals are found in the wild. Each animal page (except for common pets) has the following information tabs: body, habitat, food, life cycle, and fun facts.
After my mini-lesson, I gave the students 20 minutes to explore the entire animals’ section independently. Their enthusiasm was infectious! Each student had exciting animal facts to share with me every other second.
