On the previous page, we looked at the procedure for designing and conducting projects. If you intend to use project learning, be sure to see that page. It will give you a step-by-step procedure for guiding a child through projects. This page is a follow-up to that.
Here, you’ll find tips for making projects successful, plus more project examples.
Moving a Young Child Into Simple Projects
In my K-2 classroom, I moved a child into projects as soon as they could write. They would go around the room during our writing period asking children, for instance, which they liked best apples, oranges or bananas. Then they’d make a 3-bar graph, showing results and write a 3-sentence report about what they’d done.
To publish this work, they would glue the graph onto the left side of a large piece of construction paper and put their report on the right. After presenting it to the entire class, they would either post it on the section of the wall saved for displaying art work, projects or writing of this kind, or take it home.
Once familiar with the procedure, that child became the Expert. Seeing that child taking opinions, others would soon be asking to do it. So, I’d send them to the Expert for guidance. (I was giving Key Words to individuals.)
Once that became too easy, I’d suggest they add more options, so that their projects became a little more complex as time went on. The children in my K-2 classroom were quite young, of course, so that’s as far as they got.
But in the later years, working with middle and high school teachers, the projects were much more complex, as outlined on the previous page. That means the adult guiding them needs a way to guide them through a longer project. So, we look at that next.
Use “Check Points” to Share Responsibility and Keep Project Work Going
A common mistake adults make with projects is making the initial agreement too open-ended. They get a student started, agree on a step-by-step plan, along with a finish date, and then let them go — until that date. With such an open-ended agreement, a person of any age can get bogged down and never finish.
To avoid this, define “check points” while outlining the general overview of the plan. See as an example, this generic Project Procedure Chart. It shows a breakdown of the stages in an action-based project.
Once you’ve decided the purpose of the project, the three basic stages in any project are Investigation, Analysis, and Reporting. You and the student can sketch out a similar breakdown of the procedure. How many steps in the procedure you outline will depend on how complex it is — and you can always adjust your plan, as you go.
You don’t need to define — ahead of time — all the activities within each stage. For your plan needs to be flexible. But you do need to create a specific plan for what the student will do first. Then once you have that, you can decide together when they might be ready to show you what they’ve done.
That check point shouldn’t be more than a few days later. They may be ready sooner and can let you know. Or, when you meet, they may ask for additional time. But they will be responsible by that date for showing you what they’ve accomplished, so far.
Adjust the Scope of the Project, But It’s Not Okay To Bail Out — Or Drop a Stage!
Again, once you’ve decided the purpose of the project, the three basic stages are Investigation, Analysis, and Reporting. If the student gets into a project and find it’s too much to work with, they can reduce or completely drop some of the activities they’d planned. For example, they may have planned to interview several people, using an opinion survey. But they want to reduce the number. Or they can even eliminate it entirely, by reading articles of people’s opinions. So, they cannot eliminate the entire investigation stage. But it’s okay to change or pare it down.
Similarly, they can decide to make their written report briefer than usual, but they can’t decide not to write a written report at all. For developing the habit of completing each stage in the process as well as learning how to cut back some of it, when advisable, are both important project and life skills.
The Balance Between Content vs Skill Development Changes
The young child needs to be working mostly on skill development, and they should use topics they’re interested in from their daily life. A somewhat older child continues to develop more complex skills, and they can also handle concepts farther removed from their daily experience.
Finally, a student in their later school years — one who has been gaining process skills by working on projects all along — will be able to dig effectively into complex content that’s much farther afield.
For more about the changing balance between content vs process skills as the child grows, and other related issues, see the menu item Personalized Curriculum. For the benefits students derive from projects, see, Project Work As A Tool To Develop 21st Century Skills In Learners.
For Older Students: Note-Taking and a Portfolio of the Year’s Work.
As an older child moves into units/project learning, they need ways to organize their work and keep records of what they’ve accomplished. You can do this with notebooks for their daily work and a binder that serves as a portfolio for what they’ve done all year. They will also need to learn how to take notes. Here are some ideas concerning both:
- Note Taking. When you first begin involving an older child in Units of Study, decide ahead of time on a method for taking notes. There’s no one right way — the student need only choose a style and be consistent with it. Here are some methods to give them ideas.
2. Daily Notebooks and A Binder Portfolio. Consider having the older child use a notebook for making plans, keeping notes, etc. while they’re working on the unit. Then once the project is completely finished, they can take out some of the pages and place them in a large binder, along with samples or pictures of charts, graphs and other products they created. Keeping a portfolio is motivating. And it can serve as evidence of their own growth and what they’ve accomplished. Use a binder or perhaps a larger folder to keep pieces of a young child’s work.
Project Planning At Home
Returning to the issue of planning with the child, I want again to encourage anyone working at with a child at home to do the planning at each step along the way with the child sitting there beside you (often at the computer), discussing options and searching for what they need. For being able to do that is one of the benefits of homeschooling.
In the classroom, too, involve the group in the planning, as much as possible. Summarize what they’ve done and what their options are for the next step.
Avoid just give them assignments for what to do next. For how to learn is actually more important than what they learn, at this point in their lives.
Allow the Child Supervised Use Of the Internet
As you’ll begin with projects, you’ll see that the internet can be an extremely valuable tool for gaining information and skills. But all new developments come with benefits and drawbacks — and studies are showing that technology is no different.
So I would allow a child’s use of the internet for projects — with supervision. But I would not give them unrestricted access or time spent online. See what experts are beginning to learn and say about the effects of devices on children, and effects of social media on children.
With that in mind, we look now at project examples.
Action-Based Project Examples
Examples From My K-2 Classroom
The children created dioramas and wrote little children’s books to share information from their projects. But by far the two most popular types of projects in my classroom were the graphs already described, plus the map and TV shown below. The map of the classroom below can be a simple report, published on construction paper. Or it can be an “action-based” project — to convince the parent or teacher where a new interest area at home or in the classroom could be installed.
The TV Story can be small — using a matchbox, adding machine tape, and large, cocktail-size toothpicks. Or it can be large, using a cardboard box, a roll of drawing paper (shown below), and wooden dowels. Children used them to create “documentaries” to report what they’d learned.
The graph, construction and rolled paper can be found on Amazon.
Download Examples of Action-Based Projects — For All Ages
After I left the classroom, I worked for 20 years as a contract consultant for the California Dept. of Education, where I conducted workshops with middle and high school teachers. I also taught in the teacher education department at Claremont Graduate University and conducted private workshops. Along the way, I collected some project examples developed by teachers and their students.
I’m passing them along here as a printable PDF set of Examples of Action-Based Projects, shown in the image.
They are not meant to be recipes. They are included here just to trigger ideas.