Big Projects for Little Learners (eBook)

A PBL Guide for the Home and Classroom

Mikaela Martinez (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
385 Seiten
Jossey-Bass (Verlag)
9781394319039 (ISBN)

Infos

The complete guide to implement project-based learning in the home and classroom

Big Projects for Little Learners: A PBL Guide for the Home and Classroom is a comprehensive step-by-step guide that explores the transformative power of project-based learning (PBL), not just within the four walls of a classroom, but also in alternative learning spaces such as homeschooling or micro schools. The book is jam-packed full of real-world PBL examples and success stories, 52 complete project units you can immediately implement in your classroom setting, planning guides and resources, tips for implementation and facilitation, and guidance for assessing student learning throughout the unit and addressing common challenges and obstacles.

This book shows readers how to:

• Create a PBL unit to meet your state learning standards
• Design a driving question and connect it to the end product
• Make your home or classroom learning dynamic and engaging
• Develop ready-to-use resources to walk educators through the process
• Connect learning to the community and real-life scenarios

Big Projects for Little Learners: A PBL Guide for the Home and Classroom is a must-have resource for parents and educators seeking strategies to create a more engaging, student-centered, and future-ready educational experience.

Mikaela Martinez is a certified teacher and licensed educator with more than 10 years' teaching experience. She has specialized certifications and additional training from world-leaders in Project-Based Learning. She is also the founder of Project Based Primary, which serves homeschoolers and educators.

Textauszug

02
Math Centered PBL Units

Math is all around us: in the way we count our rock collection, sort our toys, and build towers out of blocks. But for young children, math isn't just about numbers on a page; it's about exploring, discovering, and making sense of the world. Project-Based Learning (PBL) brings math to life by weaving it into hands-on, meaningful experiences that feel like play. Instead of math being abstract, children engage in real-world problem-solving, using math in ways that feel natural and exciting.

The following units are designed to help preschool and kindergarten learners build foundational math skills—like counting, sorting, measuring, money, and recognizing patterns—through creative, student-driven projects. Whether they're setting up a store, building bridges, or exploring patterns in nature, these developmentally appropriate project units make math interactive, engaging, and fun!

Jr. Chefs

Driving Question: How can we create a cookbook that celebrates food, culture, and creativity?

Public Product: The culmination of the project will be the production of a classroom cookbook that showcases all the students’ recipes. This cookbook will be shared with families and school community, providing a tangible product that celebrates the students' hard work and creativity.

Unit Overview: This project connects students with their personal and cultural backgrounds through food. It allows them to explore what different foods mean to themselves and their families. Students will investigate various cultural foods by interviewing family members and researching family recipes. They will explore the ingredients, cooking methods, and the significance of each dish, prompting questions such as, “What makes a recipe special?” and “How do different cultures use food to celebrate?” Students will have the opportunity to choose the recipes they want to include in the cookbook, allowing them to connect with their family's heritage or their personal favorites. They will design their own recipe cards, cookbook pages, and prepare their dish for others to enjoy.

Launch Event: Bring in a variety of spices, seasonings, and cultural ingredients with distinct tastes and smells. Have students taste test and smell the different ingredients and discuss if any seem familiar to them, if they can name any of them, or if they know what kinds of food they may find them in.

Module 1: What does food mean to our family?

Activities: Students will begin by designing an interview to conduct with their family to learn about foods that are special to their family, have a significant meaning, have cultural relevance, are used for a specific celebration or event, etc. Some example questions include: “What was a favorite dish you ate growing up?”, “What foods are important to eat for different holidays we celebrate?”, “What are some important ingredients we use to make a lot of our foods?”, etc. After conducting the interviews, create a chart to compare the different foods they learned about. Compare important elements: what culture the dish represents, types of ingredients the dishes incorporate, specific tools or cooking methods needed, holidays or celebrations the food is made for, etc. Have students journal about a food that is significant to them. A food that they love, have fond memories about, enjoy having for holidays and celebrations, etc. Have them illustrate and label a detailed picture of this dish, write about it, and share it with their classmates. Add these foods to the chart as well.

Module 2: What makes up a recipe?

Activities: Students will bring copies of recipe cards from home featuring family recipes and favorite meals. Compare and contrast the recipe cards and the element included on the recipe cards. Co-create a recipe card template that students will use to create their own recipe cards throughout the unit. Set up an expedition to a local grocery store that has ingredients from many cultures or set up multiple small expeditions to local cultural grocery stores. Explore the different ingredients that students charted from their recipes and create a list of what some of those ingredients cost. Invite a few family members or community members to do a cooking demonstration of a cultural dish. Showing students how to prepare foods using the ingredients and methods they have been researching. Using a simple, no-cook recipe, have pairs or small groups of students follow the step-by-step directions on the recipe card to prepare a small dish. Now that students have experienced following a recipe card, have observed others cooking traditional dishes, and have investigated family recipe cards, use the co-created recipe card template to create their own recipe card for a family favorite dish or their own personal favorite.

Module 3: How can we make a cookbook?

Activities: Bring in a variety of cookbooks or magazines with recipes in them. Have students look through the pages and make a list of elements of cookbook pages that they see as a common thread: ingredients list, measurements/amounts, step-by-step instructions, pictures of the dish, etc. Co-create a cookbook page template that students will use to turn their recipe card into a cookbook page. Students will then use their recipe card to help them complete a cookbook page for the class cookbook. Include a drawing or, if they can get one, a photograph of the meal they are writing about. Make several copies of the class cookbook for the exhibition event. Have students design covers for the books as well. Have students write invitations to family and community members, including those you learned from during expeditions and guest visits, inviting them to your exhibition day. Create a fun title for your celebration. Send out invitations. Gather donations of ingredients for students to prepare small batches of some of their recipes, and/or ask for families to send in small batches of the recipes for the student exhibition.

Exhibition Event: Host your exhibition and celebration of cultural foods where families and community members will get to sample the different dishes and learn from students about the significance and meaning behind the foods they are tasting. During the celebration also have copies of the classroom cookbooks available for guests to look at and take home. In addition, you could have donations available for the cookbooks to then use the funds to contribute to a local food bank or community meal center.

Stations are set up for students to create different recipes and enjoy for snack. Students follow recipes to make dishes to enjoy together.

Adapting for smaller learning environments: For homeschooling, co-ops, and micro school settings with fewer students, individual students can research a variety of meals and create a mini cookbook that includes a food from the following categories: a breakfast dish, lunch dish, dinner dish, desert, holiday meal, and their favorite meal. They can prepare one or more of these foods for a family meal where they can share their learning and cookbook/recipe cards and can also collect donations of food to contribute to a community outreach facility.

I Know My Numbers!

Driving Question: How can we create a tool for our classroom that will help us learn and remember our numbers?

Public Product: Students will create a classroom number line that can be used throughout the year to reference during math. Number lines will show digits, number name, quantity, ten frame representation, and pictures of student hands showing the number value.

Unit Overview: Throughout this unit, students will be introduced to and become masters of the numbers 1 through 10. Students will explore numbers and their value, learn about their digit representation and number name, and how to represent the number quantity in multiple different ways. They will be creating a class number line that they will be able to reference throughout the school year that will aid in their mathematical thinking and learning.

Launch Event: Prior to beginning this unit, remove all representations of numbers from the classroom. This could include premade number lines, 100 charts, calendars, posters, etc. When students arrive in the classroom, ask them if they notice if anything is missing. Once they noticed that everything that has to do with numbers is gone, explain to them they will need to be the ones that become the number masters and create the materials that they will need in their classroom for them to know their numbers.

Module 1: How do we count?

Activities: Each day that you sit down to start your math block and work on this project unit, take time to open with a number-centered read aloud, such as 10 Red Dots, Chicka Chicka 123, Anno's Counting Book, etc. Use these books as an opportunity for students to practice,...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.10.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Schlagworte: ela pbl • math pbl • PBL assessment • pbl benefits • pbl classroom • pbl education • pbl examples • pbl facilitation • pbl homeschool • pbl implementation • pbl microschool • pbl obstacles • PBL planning • pbl project units • pbl resource • project based learning • Project-based learning • science pbl • social studies pbl
• ISBN-13: 9781394319039 / 9781394319039