Aloha First Graders!: Swickard Woods Part 2

Dramatic Inquiry: When we pretend to be other people in another space
Today we used dramatic inquiry to expand upon our ideas from yesterday to find animals in Swickard Woods. We pretended to be guides that were building a new wetlands and we needed to create safe habitats for the animals. First we needed to decide which animals we were creating a habitat for and how to do so. We became experts in areas of choice such as

Map makers- the children created maps of what the new habitats would look like and where we would put web cams to monitor animal activity. Elijah realized he would need an underwater webcam to watch the animals in the pond!
Animal callers- the children designed a machine that would call specific animals so we could study their characteristics.
Food House: Some children designed a house that would keep animal food in it with cameras to videotape which animals were coming in and out to eat.
Safe Trap: Some of the children were very interested in creating an animal trap that would still be safe, yet allow us to capture an animal for a short period of time for studying.
Researchers:The girls decided to research animals that they thought would be found in a wetlands and learned about their habitats.
Interviewers: A list of questions was created to ask the wetland specialists regarding animal behavior and characteristics. The girls came up with very specific questions to help them understand what types of animals we would be working with in our wetlands. Some examples were "How many animals are dangerous and how many are harmless?" "Which animals run fast and which run slow?"