Using Google Slides To Share Research

Last month I shared with you some of my favorite resources for researching with beginning readers. This month, I want to share with you how my students shared the information they learned from a recent research project we did in class.

This year's kindergarten class seems to be particularly interested in animals, even more so than classes in years past.  They cannot get enough of nonfiction books about animals.  When we began our 2 week animal unit, I knew I wanted to do something a little more with their research, so I decided to try Google Slides.

Our district uses Google accounts for all staff and students grades K-12, but as I learned, K students have never used these accounts.  Once all the accounts were set up and students completed their research, our fun began!

Because I have student teacher, I had the opportunity to work with students in groups of 4 in the computer lab while she taught the rest of the class.  If I was by myself, this would have been done during center time with me working with 2-3 students in the classroom on our classroom computers while centers were happening.  I know there is also an iPad app, but my students' logins were more complicated on there as they would have had to type their full e-mail address as opposed to just a part using a computer.

We first learned to login to our new accounts.  This was less challenging than I thought it would be! Students then chose their slide template and began to put their information in.  We did not change slide setups or anything; this was a very basic, first time project!



Once students typed all their information into their slides, we started to use Google Images to find pictures for each slide.  I didn't worry much about copyright as they were only going to share with their families and the class.  The kids learned how to copy pictures from Google Images and paste them into their slide shows. Below is a video of a kiddo narrating her work as she tries to copy and paste on her own after a little mini lesson.  Please excuse the vertical video and the kiddo's voice in the background who is also working on his project!  The last thing they did was choose transitions for each slide.  




After completing their slideshows, they shared them with my Google account so we could easily project them in the room.  Once projected, students read their slides to the class.



The kids loved listening to one another share what they learned with a thunderous round of applause after each presentation.  Slideshows were also shared with the child's family.  I would absolutely do this project again after seeing how much they got into it!




4 comments

  1. I love this!! How did the kiddos do all of their research?

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    1. Hi Alicia! We used Blast Off Readers level 1 and the Pebble Plus book series for our research. They visited the research center during our free-choice center time (they were required to go at some point within 3 weeks) to research the animal of their choice. I went over the questions at the beginning of center time each day and would assist with unknown words as needed. They were also free to help each other. Many times, I saw that children there together (2 permitted at the center at time) chose to research the same animal so they could work together.

      Amanda

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  2. I love this!! How did the kiddos do all of their research?

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  3. Wow!! This is amazing! I think that it is engaging and such a learning experience! Thank you for sharing this and getting my brain turning on some ideas!

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