Learning Important Features of Informational Text with Reindeer…..
Most of the time moving from Narrative text to Informational text is easy. My son read story books about the tooth fairy and was naturally interested in teeth. An adventure of seeking information about his teeth compared to animal teeth began.
JUST LIKE THAT…We were off to find out all about Arctic mammals!
He had never watched this classic before learning about reindeer so I was excited to watch this with him!
I wanted PJ to become familiar with all the features of Informational text. I quickly found some printable lists for my visual learner…..
Primarily Speaking Free Nonfiction Text Features Posters
Classroom Freebies Checklists and usage log
After I jotted down a hand written list of a few nonfiction text features, we headed to the library to practice using features. ( I ended up making my own visual board for nonfiction text features after the fact.)
At the library…
At the library…it’s an older edition of the first book I think.
Reindeer (A Day in the Life:Polar Animals)
We found a nice quiet place and used this Know/Want to Know/ Learned chart – Teacher Files
Next, we looked up the books I found from above. He began to fill in his Just The Facts worksheet also from Teacher Files.
Using my handwritten check list we found the most important features of Informational Text:
- Table of Contents
- Bold or Italicized words
****There are more Features to cover but my goal is to cover them one by one in a series. Stayed tuned!****
We took turns reading but I asked him to stop me when he heard a FACT so he could write it down. There were words we looked up in the glossary along the way when he didn’t understand their meaning. I wrote down those words to later use as vocabulary and speech practice words.
He wasn’t ready to answer why he thought the words were important yet. I didn’t want to overload him so I saved those thinking questions for another day.
WHAT HE LEARNED
-By that point my son was familiar with the most important Nonfiction Text Features and could look up bold words in the Glossary.
-He was able to match and find chapter headings from the Table of Contents to within the books we read.
–He could find the map in one book and point to where Reindeer migrated.
– He also had 6 facts wrote out about Reindeer that we will use later to fill in the “What I Learned” part of his K/W/L chart.
Here is an example of a Just The Facts sheet about teeth.
While we were at the library I took advantage of the printer privileges((: and printed off pages of FREE Reindeer learning from a few of these sights…
Royal Baloo – Reindeer Learning Pack
3 Dinosaurs- Reindeer Pack Story retell with puppets
More Fact Finding Ideas……
Royal Baloo – Reindeer Lapbook
Enchanted Learning – Label The Reindeer
Red Ted Art – Reindeer Bookmarks
Sarahs First Grade Snippets – Reindeer Fact Craft and More!
First Grade Smiles – Reindeer Facts And Fun
Web Facts About Reindeer…..Yep that’s a part of Common Core and well just a skill must have nowadays.
University of Alaska – Reindeer Caribou..What’s the Difference?
You Tube – Rudolph the Blue Eyed Reindeer
Animals Time all about animals for kids – Top 9 Reindeer Facts
I will share more about reindeer crafts and activities when my son has had his fill of information on the subject. Until then…
Thank you for reading!