Informational Writing & Some 3D Solids!

Time is a flyin'! Wowsers!
This week my class dove into some Information Writing. I read about a great Informational Writing Post from Abby Mullins and decided to use some of her ideas and mix it up with some my own.

Keep in mind, this is a week + lesson. I really tried to not rush this process and made sure I modelled this activity well.

First I pulled as many different level books about Frogs from my local library. At school, the kiddos and I discussed their "prior knowledge" about Frogs. From there I read a frog book, and together we filled our coloured stickies indicating a fact that we learned.
Here is an example of the chart.
Then, I broke the students up into small groups according to their reading level. I gave them their own frog books and the groups did a shared reading. I also gave them the corresponding coloured stickies and as they came across a fact that was listed on the board, they filled out the sticky and stuck it on the board.



We came back together as a class and reviewed our facts and new things we had learned.

We took these activities a step further and we took a look at Whales this week. Again, we started with Prior Knowledge (I love how the kids use this word ALL the time now! It's cute!!) The students wrote down what they "Wonder" about on a sticky and placed it under our Learning Goal.

We reviewed what we "Wondered" about and discussed that our goal when we created an informational writing piece is that we learn about and try to answer our "I Wonders". The students were broken into shared reading groups and began to fill out our informational chart.
I had this group at a listening center.




I gathered the kids back together and we reviewed our findings. On Monday, back at school, we will create a paragraph about Whales, using our newly created fact chart.

Why am I doing all this combined/group work? Well one the writing assignment my students are going to be working on this week is an informational writing book. Each student has chosen an animal to read about during independent reading. I searched HIGH and LOW for the animal of their choice at each of their reading levels. It was worth it! First the kids created a cover page.


Then, they created "I Wonder" Questions (what they wanted to know learn about).


Some of their I wonder questions are adorable. Every students questions are unique and at their level.

I gave each students a mini-sticky-note pack to keep in their independent reading boxes. While they read their animal books during independent reading, they can use the stickies to save a fact that they really like or find interesting.


This is still a real work in progress, so I will show you their finished products once it is complete :)


Onto some MATH......
This week my students were introduced to 3D Solids! Oh, how they love this unit. We have done a lot of building and creative brainstorms and challenges.

Here are a few pics of our week:


The kids also created a 3D Pocket Book (from Amy Lemons Shapin' Up Unit). I changed the book up a bit-- At the end of each math class, my students add 5 mini cards to their pocket book (so they can bring it home and practise). On one side of the card the students draw a picture of the solid we're working on, label it and write the name of the 3D solid on that back.


 WOW.... what a week!
Don't forget tomorrow-- APRIL 22nd-- is EARTH DAY. We have created an EARTH DAY FIVE PACK to help you throughout the day.
HAPPY SUNDAY, EVERYONE!! :)
~Kaitlin~





Comments