Table of Contents and Owls

This week we are continuing with our camping theme but moving into a nonfiction unit. Each day we will be reading a nonfiction text about a different animal you might see if you went camping. Yesterday we read about owls. After reading, we went around the class and took turns sharing one fact we learned about owls. Then, we created these cute little owls and used them to record 3 different facts we learned.  Here is what it looks like all closed up:

And here it is opened to the facts:

We talked about the difference between fiction and nonfiction and noted that one major difference is something called a table of contents. I taught the kids that the table of contents tells you what information you will find in the book and on what page, because in a nonfiction book you do not have to read from cover to cover like in a fiction story.  A little bit later, during daily 5, one of the students came up to me with one of our Draw, Write, Now books from the work on writing station. She was super excited to show me that she found a table of contents in the front of it.

"Look Ms. McCormack! This book has a table of contents! It shows you all the things you can learn to draw and shows you what page to go to. That way you don't have to look through every page to find what you need"

(forgot to take a picture so I pulled this one off google images)

I love it when they listen and learn something new. Makes my heart smile! :)