Adopt a Pet Activity

Once my students moved from their How Do I Research? introduction presentation to The C.R.A.P. Test worksheet to help them find credible sources to gather notes from, they were finally ready to take notes! Yay!

For this part of the activity, the students were using the two credible resources to take notes in their own words about an animal of their choice. The end objective? To write a short letter to their parents/guardians to convince them to buy this animal as a pet!

After taking notes (and clearing them with a teacher) they were able to start drafting a letter to their parents.

To help organize my students and keep them on track, I made separate worksheets for each step of the project and shared them on Google Classroom. Below are previews of the two worksheets, the notes worksheet and the Letter to Mom and Dad. You can download both by clicking here: Adopt a Pet Activity.

This is the first worksheet to introduce students to the project and organize their note-taking.

The letter to mom and dad convincing them to buy the animal the student researched as a pet!

Here is a sample of one of my student’s notes. I decided to print out the notes for this project, just to help students learn to write in their own words rather than copy and paste from a website.

These notes were almost too detailed. When I assessed this girl, I told her to worry only about the most important information. And to also look up any words she didn’t know and put them in her own words.

She was very detailed for one website–this was thorough!