1st Grade

My 1st grade group is working a PBL kit to plan a new playground for a school. They are finishing up their playground designs and then writing about them. Yesterday, some of them wrote some sentences in their plan notebooks (since the computers did not work right then). Today, these students typed sentences on the computer about what they included in their new playgrounds. I am using this kit to work on increasing creativity and supporting evidence. Although one can't figure out why students included certain things in their playgrounds from their sentences on the thinking log. I have had many conversations with students concerning why those chose to include or not include certain things. I have also overheard conversations among students about why they chose certain parts of the playground. These conversations reveal more about student learning and thinking that the writing they are able to produce, which shows that various forms of authentic assessment as wel as rubrics and observation checklists are needed for this type of instruction.