Nonfiction Text Features Continued

This week we continued looking at different nonfiction text features. Each day, Monday through Thursday, we talked about a different feature, found it in some nonfiction books, then made a page for our text features books. We looked at the glossary, table of contents, index, and charts and graphs.

Then, on Friday we put all our knowledge to use in a fun assessment. We looked up an animal we already knew a lot about (pigs - so the kids wouldn't have to hold too much new knowlege in their heads and could focus on the task at hand) on Pebblego.com. After we read about pigs to refresh our memories, each student had to create a nonfiction paragraph about pigs that included some of our text features. I asked each student to include: a heading, a picture with at least 4 labels, a caption for the picture, 3-5 sentences about pigs, 2 or more bold words, and a glossary. This assessment really showed me who understood what each of the text features meant. 

Nonfiction Text Features

This week we started to look at the different text features that make nonfiction books special. Over the next 2 weeks we will be looking at one text feature each day and learning the importance of it. Everyone started out making the cover for their books:

On Monday we learned about headings. We read some nonfiction books and looked for examples of headings in the text. Then, we added this page to our text feature book:

On Tuesday, we talked about the importance of labels in nonfiction text. We read some books and looked for different examples. Then we added the next page to our book:

On Wednesday, we looked at captions in nonfiction text. We talked about how they are different than labels, and looked for examples in our daily reading.

On Thursday, we talked about a feature we are pretty familiar with: maps! We looked for examples in our nonfiction books, then added a page to our text feature book:

We ended the week by talking about bold words in the text. We found some examples in our daily reading and added this page to our book:

Next week we are going to continue looking at different features of nonfiction text to finish up our books then we are going to start learning how we can use all these important text features to help us research and find information.



More on Nonfiction Texts

On Tuesday, we discussed making predictions in nonfiction text. The students created the first half of a t-chart, working in pairs, and wrote down some of their predictions based off of the pictures in a nonfiction text. On Wednesday, they worked together to confirm their predictions. We talked about how to read the text to see if your prediction was right. Students finished off their t-chart by writing the facts they learned next to each of their predictions. Everyone was surprised to see that some of their predictions were spot on, and some of them were great ideas but still were not exactly what the page was telling them about.

On Thursday, we talked about what happens in your brain when you learn something new. We read a nonfiction book about giraffes and we made a list of all the things our brain told us when we heard something that was new and interesting:

Everyone got REALLY into this activity! When they heard new information eveyone was calling out "wow! amazing! gross! oh my gosh!" etc to show what their brain was thinking.

To finish off the week we talked about how to use sticky notes to document your new learning. We discussed the importance of this and everyone realized that it would be much easier to remember the things you learn if you use a sticky note to mark it than to have to go back and read the whole book again to find the information. Students worked in pairs again to read a nonfiction text and each group used sticky notes to document their new learning. At the end of the morning everyone got a chance to share one interesting fact they learned by using their sticky notes.

Next week we are going to be taking a close look at the different text features found in nonfiction books.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Making Predictions in Nonfiction Text

This week we are continuing our unit on nonfiction. Today we talked about the benefits of a picture walk when reading a nonfiction text. Everyone already knew that when you take a picture walk in a fiction book you are predicting what you think will happen in the story. Today we learned that when you take a picture walk in a nonfiction book you are predicting what you think you will learn about. We talked about how this can help you as a reader to gain meaning from the text when you start to read.

As a class, we looked through a nonfiction book about elephants and wrote down our predictions for each picture. It was neat to see the different ideas each student had. We talked about how as long as you make an educated guess, there is not just one right answer.

Next, students were paired up and had to make predictions about a different nonfiction book together. They did an awesome job working in pairs and discussing what they thought they would learn about!

Tomorrow we are going to go back and read the text to try to confirm our predictions!

Nonfiction Unit

This week we are starting a unit on nonfiction and research.  To get things started we created a circle map as a class containing the different things we knew about nonfiction texts. After we had exhausted all our knowledge, we read a nonfiction book called From Egg to Chicken. I told the class to pay close attention to any nonfiction text features they might notice as I read. After reading, we used a red marker to add some of our knew thinking about nonfiction texts. As you can see, our book gave us a lot of new information. We plan to read another nonfiction book tomorrow and hopefully can add even more new learning to our circle map.

Saint Patrick's Day

On Friday, we talked a little bit about Saint Patrick's Day in class since we will still be on spring break when the holiday rolls around. We started out by watching a short video from United Streaming on the history of the holiday. Then, we pulled up pebblego.com to do some research. We reviewed some of the facts we learned, then each student put together this cute little leprechaun craft and wrote three facts they learned about the holiday.

For writing, we talked about one of the symbols of the holiday: the shamrock (also known as a clover). We talked about how most of them have 3 leaves, but when you find one with four leaves it is lucky! We created these cute 4 leaf clovers and wrote about something that makes each one of us lucky.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe spring break! Enjoy the time at home and I'll see everyone in a week! :)

Dental Health

This morning we read The Tooth Book, which is a fun nonfiction book about dental health. The book contains lots of fun facts about teeth as well as information about how to take care of your teeth.  We learned a lot of interesting things. For example, did you know that small birds pick at crocodile's teeth to keep them clean? Everyone agreed this was "disgusting" but also great to see two very different animals working together to help eachother.

After reading the book we reviewed how to take the best care of our teeth and why it is important to do so. Then, each student completed a worksheet with dental do's and dental don'ts as an assessment.

After we finished up our work we got to attend a special Kids and Cops presentation by a police officer in the pod. Kids and Cops is a great program that works with schools to teach kids that police officers are their friends and are here to help them if they need it. They talk about ways kids can be safe, and what to do when interacting with strangers. They visit our school each year and we find it is a great way to get kids to be comfortable with police officers rather than scared of them.

Polar Bears in the Arctic

Last week we finished up a unit on penguins who live in the Antarctic, so this week we moved on to polar bears who live in the Arctic.

On Monday we read a nonfiction book about polar bears, and then did a little research about them on Pebblego.com. After reading, each student made a polar bear using construction paper, and wrote three facts they learned on it's body.  We learned a lot of interesting facts! For example, did you know a polar bear can swim up to 60 miles? Or that they build a snow den for the 2 babies they have at a time?

On Tuesday we learned a little bit more about the Arctic environment and the people who live there. We read the book Angela from the Arctic and then had  discussion about how her life is the same and different to ours. After the discussion, everyone made a double bubble comparing and contrasting their life to Angela's. We were surprised to learn that even though her daily life looks very different than ours, we have a lot of things in common with her as well. For example, we found we all love to eat pizza and watermelon!

On Wednesday we read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? This is a fun book because the kids pick up on the pattern pretty quickly and can help read along. After reading we brainstormed our own list of animals and the sounds they make. Each student completed a page for a class book by following the story pattern. They did such a nice job!

On Thursday we read a little more about life in the Arctic and the Inuit people. We had a discussion about their way of life and how it is very different than ours, but that doesn't make it bad, just different.  Each student put together an Inuit person and wrote 3 facts they learned on the body.

Friday we had a little fun and painted an arctic scene. We did this as a directed drawing, and as we drew each piece of the scene we reviewed what we had learned. Did you know it only takes two hours to build an igloo? Neither did we!

Penguins!

Sorry for the lack of updating; I've fallen a bit behind in the blog! I'm going to try to do a really quick catch up, then be more on top of it starting this week.

The last 2 weeks we studied Penguins. We read ALL of the Tacky the Penguin books (which everyone just LOVES) and we spent some time discussing character traits in regards to Tacky. As a connection between reading and writing, we wrote our very own Tacky stories. Each student was responsible for creating their own character like Tacky and following the story frame to write about their character. Each story told why their character was odd, what the problem was, how the friends tried to fix the problem, and finally how their original character did solve the problem. These turned out SO cute!  Here is an excellent example:

We finished off our penguin unit learning a bit of nonfiction information about penguins. We read a few books together, and did some research on pebblego.com. After learning about the different kinds of penguins, each student completed this worksheet as sort of a key to help them identify the different types:

The next day, they put their knowledge to use and created their own penguin. Each student had to choose one of the penguins we learned about and use construction paper to make that penguin. They were allowed to use their penguin "key" we made the day before as a reference. This was a fun project, but also a good assessment piece to see what they knew about how the different penguins looked.

Emperor Penguin

Macaroni Penguin

One more fun thing we did this week was measure ourselves against a life size picture of an Emperor penguin! We learned from pebblego.com that the Emperor is the largest of all the penguins, standing at about 4 feet tall. We taped our penguin to the back of the door and each student got to come up to see how they measured up.  We found that the Emperor penguin is about the same size as the average first grader! A few of us were a tiny bit taller or shorter, but most of us were almost the exact same size (well, except for me of course haha)! How exciting! Here you can see how we measure up as a class:

Autumn

This week we have been studying the season fall. It seems a little out of place to do this unit so late, but since Thanksgiving fell so early this year we sort of had to squeeze it in when there was time.

We found that PebbleGo was a GREAT nonfiction resource to help us study this season. Each day this week we read one section on PebbleGo. After reading, we practiced retelling facts as a class and then each student was asked to record 3 facts on a special leaf shaped paper and illustrate. Yesterday, we completed our last page, created a cover, and stapled it all together to make a book.

Thankful

We started off our short week this week, learning about the Pilgrim's journey to America on the Mayflower. We read about the voyage and each part of the ship online, then made these cute Mayflower's to write some facts we learned. Each student was required to write 2 or 3 new pieces of information they learned from our reading.

After we completed our Mayflowers we put together this cute turkey craft:

Awhile back we made coffee filter monsters by making a tie-dye coffee filter and pressing the color onto paper. I saved the coffee filter, knowing we could make something cute and colorful out of it later. Those ended up being perfect for our Turkey tailfeathers! So cute!

Finally, we finished up our secret project we worked on all last week: Thanksgiving placemats for our families! We had a mini lesson on how to draw people correctly, then students were asked to draw their family in the center of the placemat. They turned out amazingly great! I just love seeing all the different families portrayed by each student. Here are a few examples (ignore the flash. I had these laminated so they could be used as a placemat):

And, as promised, here are a few pictures of our Quilt of Thanks from last week!

We had so much to be thankful for! I for one am thankful for this wonderful group of students who work hard every day and try their best. Their sweet personalities bring a smile to my face every single day. I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving holiday filled with family and friends. :)