Documentation Panels

One of the pieces of emergent curriculum and the project approach that I am challenging myself to learn more about is documentation panels.

 

I brought out photos of the various pieces of our study that we have been invested in and the children and I put them on poster board.  Then they dictated information that they remembered about what was in each photo. 

It is a wonderful tool to use to assess what the children have learned from the experiences as they recall the events depicted in the photos.  The panel with the trip to the nature center had a lot of information that the children had learned from the naturalist.  They were recalling from memory what they had heard during the trip. 

On one of the panels that depicts the experiment we did putting out food in hula hoops had photos on it that allow the children to actually count the number of apple slices remaining each day.  We documented what their predictions were and what the result was of the experiment as well. 

The photos that we are not using, I put next to their science journals and the children can choose to glue them into their journals and write or dictate the information they think is important about that photo. 

There is much more to the process of documentation panels than capturing dictation surrounding photos, but with learning any new skill, getting started is the most important step. 

What are you doing with documentations panels?  Please share your experiences.