Our Critter Learning project has two major components:
1) a series of beautiful, information- rich picturebooks and
2) classroom resources.

The picturebooks come in two formats, printed soft-cover and digital flipbook. The worksheets also come in two formats, printable pdf worksheets to be completed by hand and digital pdf fill-in worksheets that can be done online.

Our picturebooks meet the curriculum guidelines for Ontario’s Grade 2 Science and Technology Curriculum’s STRAND A: Skills and Connections and STRAND B: Life Systems, can provide extensive coverage of Ontario’s Grade 2 Language Curriculum, and can cover some of Ontario’s Grade 2 Mathematics Curriculum.

We will have two Canadian websites, www.critteraweek.ca and www.critterlearning.ca These websites and all their content will use Canadian (UK) English. The critteraweek site will hold materials teachers need to deliver our program. The critterlearning site will hold the online flipbooks and other materials learners need to follow our program at www.critterlearning.com

Although designed around the Ontario curriculum, our project will serve any school system that has adopted a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum. It will be useful even where a STEM-based curriculum is not being followed.

We are pursuing several goals as we develop this project.

Goal 1 – Introduce learners to some of the critters we share this tiny blue planet with.
Goal 2 – Have fun while learning about our critters and improving reading comprehension.
Goal 3 – Meet the expectations of the curriculum’s STRAND B: Life Systems.
Goal 4 – Use our books to meet many expectations of the Grade 2 Language Curriculum
Goal 5 – Get learners using computers early in the academic year and the Internet soon after.
Goal 6 – Get parents, grandparents, guardians, etc. involved in a learner’s education.
Goal 7 – Giving teachers the resources necessary to turn their classrooms into critter dens.

Our books, with only about a thousand words, can only scratch the surface of what is known about our critters. They should be treated as doorways into the Internet.

Critterlearning books can be used throughout the year in context with literary goals, math concepts and technical acuity. The most interesting comparisons will be between similar critters living in dissimilar environments. At a deeper level an interesting question might be: What environmental differences might have contributed to these physical and behavioral differences?