Making Meaning out of Nonfiction

I told this joke to my kids yesterday: Why does everybody want to hang out with the mushroom?
Cause he's a FUNGI!
HAHAHAHAHA!
They didn't laugh. I don't think they got it. 
Anyway, this is why I told them that joke: This week, with my struggling fourth and fifth graders, I wanted them to read with a purpose! The kids I've started pulling out recently have some pretty rough reading habits. Fake reading, mostly, and when I ask a question about their comprehension, a couple of them read a random phrase in the hopes that I will 
1. Say. "Close!" and then magically make their phrase into an answer. 2. Tell them a response that should replace their response. 3. Give up and move on to another kid.
I'm pretty stubborn. I don't do those things.
Kids must be accountable for their thinking and responding! So this week, I pulled out an old Scholastic article about the chytrid fungus attacking frogs in their natural habitats. Hence, the fungi joke.
I chose it for several reasons: Earth day is April 22nd, fourth and fifth graders are currently studying life science (habitats, ecosystems, niches, etc.), and also the pictures of frogs are pretty neat. I hoped it would be high-interest and easily connected to by the kids.
It was!
We first previewed the features and made predictions using the information in them. We completed the top half of this chart.
Then I had each student write a question that they expected could be answered in the text. They  recorded these on a post-it. As they read, their purpose was to read for evidence that could help them answer their question. I think that, because the kids wrote their own questions, they were actually pretty engaged and read very deliberately. That was a big improvement.
They read closely and added their evidence to their post-its. Afterwards, we shared and charted out our questions and evidence. The student who originally wrote about the question shared his/her evidence first, and then other students filled in with additional pieces of information they gathered during their reading. This helped us create well-rounded responses to many of the questions. 
Here's my fourth grade chart:

I really wanted to encourage kids to find specific pieces of evidence that contributed to their understanding of the question as a whole. This means that they often needed to find more than one piece of evidence for each question.  Here's a similar chart with fifth grade (the second half, where we recorded questions and evidence):

Two questions were so specific that there was not enough evidence to completely answer the question. This was a good conversation - students realized they could only find a piece of the answer but not the exact answer. This was a good talking point: making sure our evidence actually answered the complete question, instead of just being related to the question; a habit they are very guilty of!

Pin It

Earth Day: The Great Kapok Tree

So one fun part of my job is that I sometimes get to pull out kids to do fun stuff instead of test practice. This is what happened last week and the week before. I worked with a group of third graders and a group of fourth graders who had been successful in their test-taking, and we didn't want to waste their time with more of it before the test. So we learned about Earth Day! I mentioned previously, in my Five for Friday post, that I had started working with this group of kids, and I shared a couple charts we made. That's what we did first, before we read The Great Kapok Tree. We also read this freebie article about Earth Day from Rachel Parlett. You can grab it free at TPT and we charted out some basic points about Earth Day.

Using the structure I posted in my Five for Friday, post, the students wrote brief paragraphs about Earth Day and published them on some cute writing paper.

The next day, we read The Great Kapok Tree. 

My purpose for reading this book was to, of course, introduce students to reasons for conserving our rainforests, but also, to have them take the fictional story and rewrite it as a drama. I wanted them to think about what would be the role of the narrator, which character voices they would need, and what would be included in stage directions.

We started off together, charting the introduction to the drama. After a conversation about how we should differentiate between the narrator and stage directions (the kids decided that they wanted the narrator to tell the actions, and the stage directions to describe. This was with some guidance, of course!), this is what we came up with:

Then, I divided the students up and gave each one a chunk of text that introduced a different animal. I had a small group of students, and there were many animals, so only two students had to buddy up. They wrote their chunk of the story as a drama and published it, using their animal's fur or markings to illustrate the border.

After that, each student got a paper plate and enough construction paper to fill their every heart's desire.

 And this is what they made:

Sloth

Yanamamo Boy

Snake

Jaguar (looks pretty tiger-y to me)

Monkey

Porcupine - just noticed she made mistakes in her drama. Poop. Gotta go back and have her redo that one!

Anteater

Toucan (kind of)

Bee.... with a ghostly reflection of myself in the background. 

How funny that, in all the pictures, the only one I came out in is the Bee!

There's also a frog, but he's not done yet.

Stay tuned for my upcoming hallway display debut: It took me two weeks, but it is almost done!

Pin It

Summarizing nonfiction

So the other day I shared how I took an article, cut it up, and collaboratively re-created it with my fourth and fifth grade pull-out intervention group. That went really well and you can read about it here. Over the past couple days, my students and I took those articles we reconstructed and re-read them in one piece.  This was the article I read with third and fourth grade. 

 With fourth grade, I used the article as a way to review writing a nonfiction summary to process text. I wanted students to think about using the structure of the article (divided into sections with headings) to help them write their summary.

With third grade, I wanted to practice the same skill, but my third graders have trouble differentiating between the most important ideas, or main ideas of sections, and specific facts or details. To support this, I wrote a variety of statements from the article on sentence strips. 

Some ideas (Meerkats live in burrows under the ground) were very specific facts from the article. Others (Meerkats help each other by taking turns looking out for predators) were main ideas from the article. Using these sentences in a pocket chart, as well as the headings for each section and the title, we made decisions about the following things:

1. Which pieces of information are important and which are specific facts?

2. Which pieces of information would be included in a summary?

3. How can the title/headings help us choose what is important and organize it?

4. What order should the important information be sequenced in to be in logical order?

We made a little chart to help us with interesting vs. important. I forgot to take a picture! But this is the general idea:

Interesting: a specific fact or detail. Makes you say, "Wow!" or "I didn't know that!". May not be related to the main idea or purpose of the article. (real-life example: toys. They're not necessary, but we like them)

Important: a big idea. Related to the main idea or purpose of the article. Headings/titles can give you clues about what will be important in the article. (real-life example: food. It might not be fun, but it's necessary)

Still, though, this was tough for my third graders. This is what we came up with. I marked the words in the sentences that helped us identify if the statement was related to the main idea/topic of the article.

Overall, not a bad lesson. Wish I'd had a little more time to spend with them, though. Half an hour was kind of rushed.

Pin It

Water, Water Everywhere! Water Cycle & Weather Pack *Freebie!

I'm pretty excited about my new water cycle and weather pack, Water, Water Everywhere!

It's over 80 pages of printable materials to work with the water cycle and weather! I've used these ideas in my own classroom, and it's one of the things I miss! The water cycle was such a simple and fun concept to teach. And weather is exciting! 

This investigation was always so simple but so enlightening for kids!

Water Cycle Craftivity

Cloud Types Folded Flip Book

I have... Who has...

The complete pack at TPT includes...

*Water Cycle & Weather Word Wall Cards

*Water Cycle Poster

*Frayer Model for Vocabulary: (Weather, Climate, Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, Accumulation)

*Water Cycle in a Bottle Investigation (instructions, setup, and handouts included)

*Water Cycle Folded Flip Book

*Water Droplet Shape Book

*Water Cycle Mobile Craftivity

*Water Cycle Song

*Water Cycle Reader’s Theater

*Water Cycle Mix-Mingle-Team Up Activity (24 cards)

*Water Cycle Comic Strip

*Water Cycle Diagram Cut & Paste

*Water Cycle Quiz & Matching Handout

*Cloud Types Article

*Cloud Types Chart: Cut & Paste

*Cloud Types Folded Flip Book

*Weather Acrostic Poem

*Weather Jigsaw Activity (Includes readings, handouts, 

and scoring guides)

*Daily Weather Log

*Water Cycle/Weather I Have... Who Has... (24 cards)

*Bonus: Internet Resources & Webquest

And grab your freebie at TPT too! This freebie set includes a water cycle poster, a water cycle song (color and B&W versions), and a cut & paste water cycle diagram! 

Happy Teaching!

Pin It