First-grade students learn about animals and plants in their local environment. Have your students make project boards that include pictures of local animals and where they live. Possible display items include an abandoned bird’s or squirrel’s nest. Students might pin various insects to the project board and draw or write about where they live. The board could tell what kinds of animals compete for the same food or how animals store food for the winter.
First-graders have limited writing skills and may find drawing a model or creating one with photographs easier than writing an essay. Pictures taken of a skeleton at a museum help the student illustrate how fossils form or what the animal looked like. Using pictures of the sun, moon and planets, give the student everything necessary to create a project board model of the solar system. Another option involves drawing the life stages of various animals such as butterflies or frogs.
Have your class report on the diversity of animal and plant life. A student displaying different kinds of sea shells or pictures of sea creatures demonstrates the diversity of animal and plant life in the ocean, for example. Similar displays catalog the different fish in the local lake or various plants that grow around the lake. A collection of leaves or flower petals could demonstrate the kinds of plant characteristics observed during different seasons. A student could also categorize local flora by color, leaf shape, flower shape or size.
The science class may include experiments to demonstrate various functions to the students. A student could describe the basic steps of an experiment, her observations and the outcome. Sample experiments include how seeds sprout, how magnets affect each other and various metals, how the sun warms the earth or how to use the sun to heat your food. When using one of these experiments, the student might use pictures to document each step and the final outcome. A short paragraph provides information about the scientific principle tested and whether the student predicted the outcome accurately.