Nonfiction and Content Instruction

Finished up our work in the Nonfiction Book Clubs unit of study this week. The kids loved this work so much.  We are moving into a Reader's Theater unit this upcoming week...lots of work on intonation, expression and fluency ahead.  This is another unit of study that is so well loved by the kids. The folks at the Reading and Writing project in New York have been so helpful to me over the past 10 years. All of the great summer institutes, calendar days and curricular calendars have helped to guide me in the development of my own units. Thanks to all of the wonderful staff developers at the project for all that you do for teachers...and kids!

Below is example of one of the anchor charts that one group of my students created as a part of their inquiry on Frogs. I love being a teacher!

PEACE!

Anchor Charts NF Book Club Unit of Study

Just a couple of anchor charts devised during mini-lessons for the Nonfiction Book Club Unit.

Nonfiction Word Hunt

At the start of each new science unit, I have my students hunt for the "key" words that they find on the new topic in a variety of texts.  They browse the text features across all of the print material. As they browse the text, they record the words they find and tally up how many times they see them across the materials they worked with in the session. They really enjoy doing this and 

learn so much about content vocabulary and how important it is to pay close attention to it.