Animal Cereal Boxes

First grade has just wrapped up a fun project - Animal Cereal Boxes. To begin the project the children randomly choose a piece of paper with an animal written on it. All of the animals are from our current language arts unit. I sent home an animal fact sheet for the children to complete as research homework with their parents. Once the sheet is returned and the child brings an empty cereal box back to class, it is 100% their own project. Each child has to wrap their box in construction paper, neatly copy the research information onto the project paper, draw a realistic picture of the animal in its habitat, create and illustrate the cereal name and artwork, as well as describe characteristics of the animal on both sides of the box. It is a lot of work and the children dedicated a lot of time to compose the final product. These projects are special because they capture the children’s personalities, it is evident in the finished project. After all of the work: coloring, cutting, writing, reading, researching, memorizing, and gluing, the children have to stand in front of the class and present their projects. The children did an outstanding job teaching the class about their animals. I could not be more proud of each of the first graders and the tremendous amount of work they put forth.

—Mrs. Gordon