Non-Fiction Writing: Steps 2 and 3

We started our Non-Fiction writing unit a few weeks ago and things have been going wonderfully!  The students have very much enjoyed learning about their animal and are very proud of themselves as Non-Fiction authors.

As a second grade, we are visiting the aquarium on Monday on a field trip.  One of the second grade teachers came up with a list of 5 animals that we will see at the aquarium (and that the students were able to easily research).  The students chose their animal so that we had 4 students in each group.  We are going through the entire research and writing process with them.  I model each step with our "class animal" and then the students complete that step on their own.

Step 1 was to read over our sources with our partner.  You can read more about that here.

*Sorry about the random round circles.  My normal photo editing program was not working correctly.  Had to improvise!

They are just working so hard, that I had to share their photos!

Step 2 was to take notes on their research.   We used the note-taking templates that I made.  My original plan was to have them use sticky notes and place them in the boxes (they fit perfectly).  However, I could picture the sticky notes falling off and getting lost pretty easily.  So I just had them write in the boxes, which worked great!

 There was one page for their animal's appearance, one for habitat and one for diet.

Step 3 was to share their research with their group.

Stay tuned for the next steps in our writing process!  And keep your fingers crossed that we complete them before the school year ends!

Non-Fiction Research

We are ending our year with some Non-Fiction writing in our classroom.  The second grade is going on a field trip to the aquarium, so the students chose a sea animal to research.  We borrowed some books from the library and, with help from our technology teacher, found some pretty cool facts online.  We used the following websites to find kid-friendly facts about our animals:

World Book Kids

World Book Student

Animal Fact Guide

Kids' Biology

Today we started off by reading our sources with a partner.  The kids did a great job reading with their partner and discussing their new learning!

Our next step will be to take notes on the research that we have done.  Then we will be putting our notes into sentences...paragraphs...books!  We'll be non-fiction authors before we know it!  I'll be sharing pictures as we continue our project.

Lightbulb Moment!

Clipart: Wizard of Boz

Ever have one of those lightbulb moments?  Or maybe it's called, duh-why-didn't-I-think-of-that-before moments.  You decide.  Either way, I had one of those moments this week.

The Common Core stresses (reallly stresses) Non-Fiction reading.  Unfortunately, children's book publishers don't as much.  I really struggle to find non-fiction books that aren't too simple for my students but aren't too challenging either.

I realized that Scholastic News (as well as Weekly Reader) puts out a Non-Fiction "newspaper" for students every week!  Some weeks we read them as a class, some weeks we read it in partners and some weeks we don't get to the Scholastic News at all.  I thought, why not laminate them so that the students can keep them in their book bags?  Lightbulb Moment!  I laminated two of each volume so that the students can read them in partners, as well.

Scholastic News distributes different ones each year, so I can continue to build my non-fiction collection.

The Scholastic News bucket in my library (it needs a label!):

These are the small ones that are cut apart and made into books:

And these are the normal size Scholastic News:

The students will each have on in their book bag along with their fiction books! 

Happy Friday!