Have you been looking for the perfect project based learning curriculum? If you've been on the lookout for a game-changing approach to captivate your upper elementary students and ignite a passion for learning, you're in for a treat! Buckle up as we dive into the world of project-based learning (PBL) – the secret sauce to turning mundane lessons into exciting adventures.

I love the whole idea of project-based learning! The idea of addressing all subject areas in the context of one project makes so much sense, and allows for better real-life application. I had dabbled in PBL a little bit, but never to the extent of this project, in which I asked students to design a zoo. This was the perfect project for the end of our strange traditional-turned-virtual school year, and the kids really took it and ran with it! They were able to complete it at their own pace, collaborating with their families, and it went so well that I'm already planning to use it again next year when we're (hopefully) back in the traditional classroom. While the task of designing a zoo sounds monumental, I broke it down into individual tasks for my students. Differentiation was easy as I gave families the freedom of doing more or less than suggested for each task, depending on the needs of their child and family. (Let's face it, crisis schooling is not the same as homeschooling; I know some families just didn't have time to go all-out on a project, and that's okay!) Using this in the traditional classroom will make for easy differentiation, too, and I've included teacher tips for both higher and lower lever learners for each task in the download which is available here in my store! This project includes all of the subjects and many first grade standards. First, students select animals to include in their zoo and conduct research on them, making notes about what they eat, what kind of climate they need, and more. Next, they design the habitats based on their research, and create a plaque for each animal exhibit. They work on mapping skills as they create a map of their zoo, and coding as they then use their map to give directions to popular destinations. Math is integrated as they come up with prices for tickets and extra amenities they included in their zoo, and also as they set a feeding schedule for their animals. After all of that work is done, they get to add in art and technology as they design advertisements and create a commercial. Some of my kids even decided to design t-shirts! It was so satisfying as a teacher to see all of the ways my students completed this project. After completing all of the tasks and research, most of them actually set up a physical zoo in their house, and they were incredibly creative! Some of them made animals out of clay, others used stuffed animals--one even used her sister wearing an animal hat! They all truly made it their own, while learning and applying skills along the way. I hope your class has as much fun with this as mine did! You can find it here in my shop or here in my TPT store. Keep teaching with heart and passion!

What is PBL? Project-based learning is an approach in which students explore real-world problems and challenges to acquire a deepe...

Throughout the school year, I know I would often find myself scrambling for ways to keep my students engaged in their learning and jazz up our classroom routine. As the sun starts shining brighter and summer is in the air, students are restless, and so are we... but the show must go on! Learning must continue, but can be done in an engaging and fresh way with hands on, creative project based learning resources! Grab a few of these PBL project ideas to finish out the year and enjoy watching your students engage in their learning and demonstrate their hard earned skills!

Project Based Learning (PBL) is becoming an increasingly popular teaching method in the classroom these days - and for good reason! Not only are there many benefits of project based learning, but it can also create an engaging learning environment.

Check out these 50 (!!) project based learning activities to engage and excite students and get you started with PBL.

How to plan collaborative project-based learning activities in the math classroom. Check out these engaging PBL ideas for 3rd grade students!

Learn how easy it can be to integrate 2nd grade personal finance standards into units that teach math and money concepts!

Planting lifelong foundations in early childhood

Looking for some fun project based learning ideas? This is the place! From PBL examples, lesson plans, and even a project based learning definition, we've got you covered!

On more than one occasion, I have heard friends who are parents say something along the lines of, “I hope I got an A on my kid’s project!” And they’re joking, but not joking, because “helping” with a school project really meant that they scrambled to construct a habitat diorama or California mission while their child passed them the glue.

Learn all about our Market Day PBL (Project Based Learning) that was focused on creating a business to sell goods and services.

What is PBL? Project-based learning is an approach in which students explore real-world problems and challenges to acquire a deepe...

This Project Based Learning activity allows your students to critically think about what would be the best learning environment for them.

In the Spring time, it is the perfect time to introduce the life cycle of plants to your students. They are seeing new growth all around them.

What is PBL? Project-based learning is an approach in which students explore real-world problems and challenges to acquire a deepe...

BUILD A CITY! Box Town is an exciting Social Studies Urban Planning and Community Development PBL Unit that can be done as a collaborative activity with your Second, Third, or Fourth Graders. What better way to build ‘classroom community’ than by building a community in your very own classroom! WHY I CREATED THIS RESOURCE: Elementary students LOVE to explore and build. They are curious about cities, towns, maps, and geography. I have found that creating a 3D city is the perfect opportunity to nurture that curiosity and help students develop their awareness of types of communities. A PERFECT SUPPLEMENT to your existing Social Studies Curriculum! INCLUDED IN THIS RESOURCE: Lesson Plans K-W-L Chart Scavenger Hunt Editable Parent Notes Brainstorming Cards 12-Page City Planning Guide Editable Building Slips Student Debriefing Cards Student Reflection Writing Teacher Reflection Questionnaire Tips for Success Please check out the PREVIEW to get a closer look! IMPORTANT NOTE: This is an editable PowerPoint resource. You MUST have PowerPoint installed to use this resource. ************************************************************************************* THANKS FOR VISITING MY STORE! I am creating new resources all the time! CLICK HERE to follow my store and stay updated on my latest resources and FREEBIES. ************************************************************************************* I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! After your purchase, please leave feedback and let me know how you used this resource with your students. Leaving feedback will help you to earn credits toward FREE resources! *Feel free to contact me anytime at [email protected]. I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions.

Learning about rules the first week of school does not have to be boring! Check out this fun and engaging Create a School project.

Have students find and implement solutions to real-world problems.

Make science come alive with project based learning and our solar system by doing interactive activities that impact student learning.

Camping project based learning unit for first and second grade

Don't let Project Based Learning overwhelm you, it is a fun process where the students are engaged, learning and using their life skills.

Learn what homeschoolers need to know about project-based learning (PBL) from the perspective of a classroom teacher working closely with homeschoolers.

Do you want to get started with project based learning, but you’re not sure how? Maybe project based learning sounds too complicated, in-depth, and overwhelming to you? That’s how I felt when I first delved into PBL. But now I know there is nothing to be afraid of! In this post, I will give a quick explanation of project-based learning and then give you some tips and ideas to begin to implement it in your own classroom. What is Project Based Learning? Project based learning, simply stated, is an authentic learning experience

Ever wonder how to schedule project-based learning into your already busy classroom schedule? In this post, you'll see sample schedules for every grade!

Looking for project based learning ideas for middle school or elementary school students? They will love planning a road trip from start to finish!

Many of you are desperately counting down the days to summer vacation right now, and I know all too well how much of a struggle it is to keep students engaged through the last few days of school! My favorite way to keep students working hard through to the end of the school year is with projects. You can hit several standards at once, group students together so they don't need you as much (all the praise hands for this one), and make it as big and creative as you want! Some easy-for-teacher projects are math PBLs. My Build a Zoo PBL is PACKED full of Common Core math standards that can be used as review this time of year. It is differentiated, so you can still enrich for your higher achieving students, and the idea of designing a zoo is super engaging for students...even as summer break is on their minds! I wanted to give you all a close look at the Build a Zoo project, so you can see what I'm talking about! The entire project is printable, and only a handful of the pages include task cards that you may choose to cut. You can't get any easier when it comes to prepping for a project! When you introduce this to your students, start by letting them know that they are zookeepers for the week (or maybe longer, depending on how you choose to roll out the pieces of this!), and it is their job to keep the zoo running smoothly. This includes planning the schedule, feeding the animals, designing where the different exhibits will go, and so much more! There is no way your students won't get excited about that. ;) First, your students will need to choose the animals they want to have in their zoo. You can differentiate this by giving students a budget of $100 or $1000. They decide how many of each animal they would like, and they track their spending. Staying in budget provides a bit of a challenge...making it extra fun! Once your students have chosen the animals they would like in their zoo, it's time to design the zoo grounds! They must measure the animals of their choice using the animal task cards and draw the exhibits to scale. Your class will love being treated like architects with this task! **If you are a Canadian or Australian teacher, measurement pages using the metric system are also included! Alright, your students have animals, and they have designed the actual zoo. Now, your students must use their knowledge of time to create the zookeeper's schedule. Depending on the animals they have chosen, the time spent feeding animals will vary. There are also special shows and events that the zoo hosts that they must work in! This section is also differentiated, so you can switch it up for students who have mastered elapsed time at different levels! The zoo is open and running, and it is the zookeeper's job (aka your students') to feed the animals and make sure that they get what they need! This section of the project reviews fractions! Students must determine which fraction of the animals prefer different types of food. Your students will be working so hard as they jump from skill-to-skill in this PBL activity! Money is another important skill you may want your students to review this year. As customers are purchasing their souvenirs, the zookeeper must help them determine if they have enough money for the things they want! **As a bonus, this portion of the project comes with task cards using Canadian and Australian money clip art! After all parts of the zoo are up and running, an important part of any zookeeper's job is to track how well their zoo business is going! Students can brush up on their data collection skills with this graphing task to finish up the project. Whew! As much as that may seem, that's not even every piece of this project! But what's great about having so many options is you can pick and choose what will work for you class! If this is the first PBL your students have done, it may be best to introduce the tasks one or two at a time to keep your students from being overwhelmed. You also can staple all of the pieces together in a booklet and let the students work through at their own pace! The possibilities really are endless, which is what makes something like this perfect for the end of the school year. If you're interested in trying this project in your classroom, you can see it in my TPT store HERE. If you have used on of these PBLs before, don't forget to tag me in your post so I can see it! I love what teachers have to say about this project! Their students love it, and I know yours will, too. :) Want to remember this later? Pin it!

Students will love picking out their own pet using real-world math applications in this PBL - adopting pets, feeding and training them, buying pet supplies, and more! Incorporate authentic real-world problems into your classroom using this engaging activity. This product is differentiated, with mult...

Learn how Project Pals make it easier for educators to find PBL projects that are just right for their classrooms. Upgrade project-based learning with this powerful platform.

Note: This is the second post in a two-part series. See the first post here. Now that you know the components of Project-Based Learning, I want to share a step-by-step example illustrating how I walked through a project with my primary kiddos. As a disclaimer, the project I am about to share is not perfect. It's a work in progress (aren't they all?), and I'm sure I'll continue to tweak it in the years to come. That said, I hope this will still provide a practical example of how you can pull off a project of this scale in a primary classroom. Here's how you can make it happen! 1. Present the Essential Question and Brainstorm Solutions As I wrote in my last post, our essential question for the project was, "How can we use economics to bring justice to the world?" I started off by presenting the students with some background knowledge: families in many countries around the world depend upon cows and other livestock for their livelihoods, but they often don't have enough. Next, I framed a central problem. Cows, which can provide extra income, cost around $500 in many countries, and that's often beyond the reach of the families that would benefit most. How could our class earn that much money and help a family develop a more sustainable livelihood? I created a problem and solution chart and had students share their ideas for how they could solve this problem. The teacher is the facilitator in this step, and can guide students towards the idea of creating their own businesses. 2. Brainstorm Ideas Individually A few years ago, I read the book Quiet by Susan Cain. I'm an introvert myself, and this book helped me better understand how to operate well in a group setting. Jumping right into brainstorming without quiet time to think is an incredibly stressful experience for me, and I don't typically feel comfortable processing things verbally in front of others. According to Cain, it turns out that extrovert-oriented brainstorming sessions don't necessarily lead to the best ideas. Everyone, whether introvert or extrovert, has the best ideas when they are given time to think quietly on their own before coming together with a larger group. I see individual brainstorming time as one of the most important steps of the problem-solving process. Giving your students time to think individually before they collaborate with peers will help them prepare their valuable contributions to their group. 3. Collaborate as a Group After students have written down their individual business ideas, it's time for them to share their concepts with their group. Before your students break off into groups, review and model appropriate social skills for collaboration. I can't say this often enough: assume nothing and model everything. It's easy for adults to take for granted the skills we've mastered for working well with others. Don't forget, though, that learning how to speak is a relatively recent event in your primary students' lives. They've only been using complete sentences for a few years! It's completely reasonable and absolutely necessary to set aside time to practice how to respectfully disagree and make compromises with others. When your students do break off into their teams to share their individual ideas and come up with a group concept, remind them that they'll be allowed to tweak their ideas in the future. This isn't set in stone after the first group meeting! 4. Explore the Topic in Other Content Areas This is the fun part for me. I love referring back to my Curriculum Map and bringing the economics theme into other subject areas. Take this opportunity to cover your measurement and data standards on the value of money, hit your language arts standards on persuasive writing by creating advertising for stores, and address reading comprehension standards by reading books and articles about finances and businesses. ReadWorks is a fabulous resource for leveled articles, and you can search for resources about economics by your students' grade level. There is a wealth of quality children's literature with this theme, too. Here are some titles to help you get started! 1. A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams 2. Pedrito's Day by Luis Garay 3. A Day's Work by Eve Bunting 4. Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst 5. Once Upon a Dime by Nancy Kelly Allen 6. Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco 7. A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert 8. Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts 5. Develop a Prototype and Revise Learning how to make a plan before diving into a project is an invaluable skill that will benefit your students throughout their lives. (It's something I'm still working on myself!) Before handing over any project materials for making store products, have your students work with their team to draw a detailed plan or build a prototype out of inexpensive materials. That way, when you hand over the real supplies for creating the products to sell, your students will have a clear end goal in mind. This also helps to resolve disputes about product designs before they even start! 6. Create a Final Product Now the fun part: give your students time to create their final products! Don't be shy about asking for help from parent volunteers, and I would recommend distributing only a few supplies at a time. For example, if you have a group painting toy cars, don't give them all 20 cars at once. Give them just a few to work on initially so that there is a higher quality of workmanship. Discuss with your students the importance of offering quality products in your store. 7. Share Learning with the Community After all of that work developing their businesses, your class will be ready to celebrate! As a culmination of the project, host a market on your school campus to sell the products the students made. Again, don't be shy about recruiting volunteers! After the market, help your students calculate their earnings, pay back their loans, and use the profits to buy a cow for a family in the developing world. 8. Reflect on Learning A final, critical component of Project-Based Learning is allowing your students to reflect on their experiences. Remember, you built in room for failure, and your students learned a lot through the process of fixing those mistakes or revising their plans. That's the whole point of Project-Based Learning. This reflection step will solidify for your students what they would like to do differently when you take on your next big project together as a class. Do you feel ready to get started? If you are looking for a resource to make your first experience with Project-Based Learning a breeze, I have good news! I've included ALL of the printable materials you'll need for this project, as well as a more detailed daily pacing guide, in my Marketplace Economics packet. Click here to see more! This post contains affiliate links. This means that Amazon awards me a small referral fee when people visit their site via the links in my blog posts and purchase something (even something other than the linked product!). This doesn't affect the price you pay, and you can be confident that I only recommend products and teaching supplies I believe in and use myself. Thank you so much for your support in making this blog possible!

Have you been looking for the perfect project based learning curriculum? If you've been on the lookout for a game-changing approach to captivate your upper elementary students and ignite a passion for learning, you're in for a treat! Buckle up as we dive into the world of project-based learning (PBL) – the secret sauce to turning mundane lessons into exciting adventures.

Students will love planning their own garden with this free project based learning activity. Incorporate authentic real world problems into your classroom using this engaging project. This product is differentiated, with multiple versions of some pages created to range in difficulty. Choose between ...

One of the kindergarten Common Core writing standards is to participate in shared research and writing projects (W.K.7) and to gather infor...

If you are getting started with inquiry, you may wonder where to start and how to prepare for something that is student-led. Although using an inquiry

Need an enagaging, real-world math project? This post shows how your students can create a dog business of their own using the four operations.

What is project based learning? How can I implement it in my classroom? These are all questions I had just a few weeks ago that many of you may have...

Are you in search of a real world application of the concepts you have been teaching? In need of a way to solidify the skills your students have learned in their mind? Have you heard of Project Based Learning activities? PBL (for short) are activities that help your students make connections and see...

Included in this long ago unit are anchor charts, sorts, student worksheets and an interactive social studies flap book. Get a freebie in this blog post!

The genesis of a great project is the idea itself -- we're providing you with 50 smart project-based learning ideas for your classroom.

A wonder wall is an inquiry based learning activity that encourages curiosity in the classroom. When a student has a question, I hand him or her a sticky note to stick up on the thought bubble on the wall, research it, and report back to the class.

Elevating summer learning to the next level.

Project based learning benefits are plentiful, but have you tried this type of teaching and learning in your own classroom yet? Either way, you're in the right place! Together, let's dive into the awesome world of Project Based Learning (PBL), a game-changer in our classrooms. Forget the same old routine - PBL is all about making learning a blast!