So as not to overwhelm you, I was planning to break up my
Non-Fiction Unit into 2 two week chunks.
After starting to explain week 3, however, I decided that I will go
ahead and break it up into 3 chunks: Weeks 1 & 2, Week 3, and Week 4. If you would like to read weeks one and two,
please scroll down to my first Notable Non-Fiction post!
Before I get started with Week 3, I wanted to add one more
resource for you to read. If you’re a
nerd like me, you will love this research article about the benefits of
integrating Non-Fiction text. Yes, it’s
a little wordy and “college-esque”, but as always, skim it, read it, take what
you need/want, and go on with life! J You can visit Tiffany and Lemont Flowers’
article here (and as always, since I’m posting this link with their names,
please don’t give me any credit it it! I’m
just an admirer—I had nothing to do with writing it!)
Okay, so now on to the next week in my classroom. When I left off, I told you guys that at the
end of week 2, it was a great time to gauge students’ progress. I use the first few days of week 3 to really
work with strugglers, and you’ll see why (and how there’s time!) in just a
second!
Week 3 actually begins to incorporate Non-Fiction reading
with 2 writing units: Non-Fiction writing (of course!) AND Authors as
Mentors. During the first few days of
week 3, our classroom focuses A LOT on books by Gail Gibbons. She writes AH-mazing Non-Fiction books for
children. Let me count the ways I love
her books: 1. They are child friendly.
2. They layout is wonderful! 3. The topics are interesting. 4. While her
books are non-fiction, they have accurate illustrations instead of real
pictures. This helps kiddos when they
are trying to “model” her work (so they don’t become frustrated with their own
illustrations!) 5. I could go on and on and on…….
But anyways, back to week 3.
The first few days, we spend time learning about Gail Gibbons and
exploring her work. Her website has a
great biography, as well as some blurbs about her books! You can view it here:
During these first few days, I also put out ALL my Gail
Gibbons books for students to use. Our
school library has lots, and I’ve collected many at garage sales, thrift/resale
stores, and at online sources. Also, if
need be, amazon.com always has many of her books at great prices!
While we are exploring her text, I always pick one book for
ME to model with mini-lessons to the
class. This year, I picked Owls. I, of course, begin by looking for those
Non-Fiction text features (which not all GG books have). This is a good conversation starter about how
not ALL Non-Fiction books HAVE to have ALL of the features we’ve talked
about! Then, we read and discuss how
Gail Gibbons must have done a lot of research to write this book (they should
already know this by reading her bio from her website!). Finally, I bust out the Graphic Organizers
for students to write a few facts from my Owls book today. Once they finish at their desks, we come back
together and share a few before I send them back out with a GG book of their
own and a new Graphic Organizer. Their
job is to read, fill it out, then come back later to share.
During this time, I pull my small groups for extra support
with NF text. It is up to you how/what
you want to concentrate on, because you know your kiddos better than me! But, you should have a good chunk of time to
work with your small groups for the next few days!
When we all come back together as a class, we share facts the
facts students found. THEN, (this is the
fun part), we try to “guess the fact” from GG website under Teacher
Resources. The students love this game
and are very eager to listen. Sometimes,
even, those facts lead them to reading that book later on in the day!
Okay, so this goes on for 2-3 days. On Tuesday of this week, I have them use one
of their Graphic Organizers to actually form and write a page. The page I give my students looks like this:
 |
| My team is awesome and helps me come up with ideas like this one! (Props to SK!) |
Generally, their facts are so well laid out that we do not
need to pre-write. But as always, it is
completely up to you!
After this first “round” of research and writing, I am very
careful to check students work.
Sometimes I get a student who likes to sneak in “facts”. Yes, I put it in quotes because we all know
those “facts”…..like “Skunks lay eggs”, or “Owls are cool”…. So even 3 weeks in,
I still have to stress the difference between facts and not facts.
On Wednesday of week 3, I assign students a topic to begin
their Non-Fiction research project on.
It tends to go hand-in-hand with another content area (I’ve done Savanna
Animals and Money). This year, our grade
linked it up with the specific Science Habitats listed in our TEKS: the
Woodlands, the Garden, the Beach, the Park, and the Lake. Our class habitat was the Woodlands!
To begin with this project, I assigned multiple students to
the same topic. Students complete their
writing and final project on their own, but having a partner or group really
helped with the research part (I’ve learned this the hard way-- after wanting
to pull my hair out, running around like a fool, trying to help 22 kiddos
research all different topics!).
So again, we incorporate the graphic organizers, but this
time, for our specific animal. I am sure
to model beforehand with MY animal (the Owl).
They watch me find information and record it on my sheet (4 different
topics: Attributes, Habitat, Life Cycle, and Diet), then they go off and
complete their own with my guided help. I
generally try to have kiddos complete 2 a day, since this project falls into
the categories of Reading (using NF text to locate facts), Writing (planning a
first draft by using Graphic Organizers), and Science (observe, record, and
compare needs and characteristics of animals).
Graphic Organizers are so useful for this project—they help
guide the students to find the correct needed information, and they are very
visual and well laid out! This year, I
used all of mine from Scholastic teacher resource books. Here are some of my favorites (and one filled
out):
So with week 3 coming to an end, let me recap quickly:
Monday and Tuesday, we begin Gail Gibbons, Tuesday or Wednesday, we write an
example page by using our Graphic Organizers, Wednesday or Thursday, we begin
researching our animal, and Thursday and Friday we research, learn, and record
information about our animal’s Attributes, Habitat, Life Cycle, and Diet.
Whew! Are you tired
yet? I keep reminding myself that week 3
is, truly, the busiest week. Also,
please remember that every classroom is different—so please tweak this to fit your specific needs!
Thanks for putting up with all my Non-Fiction babbling! Be sure to come back tomorrow to see how my
class finished up this unit! As always,
feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns!
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