Great Brain Projects

Emily's 2nd grade class is doing Great Brain Projects this school year. What it boils down to is that each child in class chooses a topic to become an "expert" on for the year, then each month, does a short oral presentation on that topic.

Emily chose butterflies.

We spent a long time one afternoon perusing different websites about butterflies, and jotting down information we felt was interesting and worth using at some point. Then we went through and tried to organize all our notes into themes.

The first month of the project, she talked about the "Parts of a Butterfly", and had a visual aid where she'd labeled everything on the butterfly. The second month of the project, she talked about the "Life Cycle", and her visual aid was pictures showing the adult butterfly, the eggs, the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and back to the adult butterfly. The third month, I suddenly realized, is going to be a lot trickier. We have lots of interesting facts, but nothing really ties into each other.

Hence, her "Fun Facts" theme for this upcoming 3rd presentation! She'll be talking about how many species of butterflies there are worldwide (quite conflicting in our research so we went with a mid-range number of 28,000). She'll be talking about how Arizona has the most species of butterflies of any other state in the USA. She'll be talking about how fast butterflies can fly (again rather conflicting... One site said the top speed is 12mph, another site said higher, another said lower, and another one said 5-30mph depending on the butterfly. We went with that figuring it covers a nice broad range...LOL). She'll be talking about the largest butterfly in the world (Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, with a wing span of up to 12 inches, found in Papua New Guinea), and the smallest butterfly in the world (Western Pygmy Blue, found in in the good ol' USA, in southern states, with top wing span being 3/8 inch). She'll also be talking about how butterflies are cold blooded and can't fly if they get too cold.

I'm panicking slightly about what to do for her next two presentations... We've used up all the basic info and the fun facts... We still have info about migration and/or hibernation, so that can probably be one of the months... We'll have to keep researching.

I did look into buying one of those butterfly kits, where you get the TEENY caterpillars and the special food and you get to observe them growing, forming a chrysalis, and then emerging as butterlies, and then you get to release the butterflies into your yard. I thought our final month's presentation could be real pictures of the process if we buy the kit, but then that's sort of repeating the "Life Cycle" presentation???

2nd Grade research projects are harder than they look!! Dan keeps insisting I'm doing all the work for Emily, but I don't think that's fair, or true! Yes, I'm helping quide her through Internet info (she doesn't know how to type or sort through all the pages that come up), and I'm helping her choose what is good info to write in her notes, and what info isn't as relevant (and SHE is doing all the note-taking!). I'm also helping her organize her notes into themes (we don't find all the info in the exact order we'd like to be using it). I'm helping her plan out her visual aids, but I'm not DOING her work. I'm offering up several ideas and letting her choose which way she wants to roll, and I'm constantly asking her what ideas she has, etc. I'm offering suggestions as to what might be a good next step to take, but never once have I sat down and dictated how things are going to go. I've been REALLY proud of Emily for the hard work (several hours worth, all told, so far!) she's put in, the excitement she's come into it with, and her ability to get up in front of her class to present something!!! How else will she learn these skills if someone isn't helping guide her through them?? Miss Emily has really jumped right into this whole thing, and I'm just so stinkin' proud of her!

While I sometimes feel this is a little much for only 2nd grade, the bigger part of me really appreciates that it's being introduced EARLY. Emily is learning study skills, note-taking, organization, public speaking skills (and is building the confidence to be up in front of a group in the first place), not to mention she's getting to explore a topic she's interested in. How awesome is that?? KUDOS to her teacher!

Supposedly someone is coming in and videotaping each of the kids doing their presentations. We're supposed to get copies at the end of the year. If it turns out, I'll share it with you!!