At our school, the students participated in all the activities throughout the year.
At first, they were introduced to the subject watching its trailer. There was an interesting and useful discussion in class about internet netiquette and safety where the children shared their experiences and had fun playing a relevant kahoot game.
They presented themselves, their pets, their school. They made logos for our logo contest. They had fun drawing and got ideas from each other and from our partners' logos.
Our students searched for information about different animals according to their preferences: physical characteristics, habitat, eating habits, threats etc. They made drawings to go with the texts they wrote. They also made book covers and drawings for each chapter of the ebook.
The animal welfare society was invited to our school and they talked to ALL the classes about animals, how to take care of them, how to protect them and ourselves, about respect to all living things and nature. After the animal welfare society' s visit, we discussed in class the laws that protect animals in Greece and drew some of these rules to upload them to our common storyjumper ebook about animals.
Next, we recorded our part of the trailer for our TV Channel documentaries. Recordings, a learning method that we often used throughout the project, proved a useful tool for students to listen to themselves, correct their mistakes and pronunciation and feel more confident. Noone was left out of this, even the weaker students participated.
According to our project plan, each school had to visit a kennel or animal shelter and make a video of the visit. Due to the Corona virus measures, this visit was forbidden, so we took a virtual visit of the animal welfare society' shelter and made a touching video of it, showing all these cute, abandoned dogs and cats looking for a home and our students petting them.
We even imagined what an interview with a vet would be like and made a video of this imaginary interview after we had read about a vet's job on the internet.
The students brought in class or uploaded to our lino wall pictures of abandoned animals they had found in their neighborhood, animals for which they had cared. They drew our motto ANIMAL=FRIEND, which we put up on our classroom door for everyone to see. We are animals lovers!
Another project task was making a documentary about an animal-friendly town. By now the students were more sensitive towards the needs of animals and it was easier for them to imagine what makes a town friendly to animals.
Last but not least, the students evaluated the project. They all said they liked it.
As a teacher, I sincerely hope this project helped them, among other things, to become more sensitive towards the needs of the ones who need us.
