Connor's Project - This FamiLee

This last week Connor worked on his first research project!

The last week of winter break at his school is called Project Week. This is a time the students are to work on the project assigned by their teachers before coming back to school for the spring semester. Connor’s teacher assigned each student an animal to research. The students were to prepare a written report, a drawing or painting & an oral presentation.

The students are to work on the project a little bit each day starting with a trip to the library to find an informative book about their animal.

Connor even found a plastic tiger in the infant area of the library!

After reading the book he checked out we were able to learn different facts about his animal. He was really grossed out to learn that tigers eat deer. 🙂

Over the next few days we worked on the written portion of his report. I was not excited when I read how much he was expected to write but he did so great! He has really shown much more stamina for assignments that require him to write. But it was best for him to split up the writing part over a few days so he didn’t get so frustrated with working hard to use his best handwriting.

He was also required to include a drawing or painting of the animal in its habitat. Again, I was anxious to see how he would do with that part because he doesn’t enjoy coloring (or art projects of any kind) and tries to rush through them without really paying attention to what he is coloring. I had him do a practice drawing to see how he would do. I was able to get him to slow down some and try his best.

One interesting thing I noticed when he was drawing the tiger was that he didn’t connect anything. So he would draw the head and then above the head add the ears but they wouldn’t touch the head. Same with the body, legs & tail. I brought this up to his teacher and she said she sees the same challenge at school when he is supposed to copy something from the board to his paper. She suggested that I sit beside him & draw a tiger with him, drawing one piece at a time. That seemed to help.

We completed his report and he has practiced his oral presentation several times this weekend. I know he will do great when it is his turn to tell his teammates all he learned about the tiger!