Sunday, March 30, 2014

Favorite Nonfiction Books


 I always try to read a balance of both fiction and nonfiction books to my students.  As a class, we have many conversations about the similarities and differences in these kinds of texts.  Because we are learning about the features of fiction and nonfiction, I find when students begin writing in this genre it becomes easier. 

This post will share with you some of my favorite books to use when teaching nonfiction.  





The first books are animal books by Kate Riggs.  Right away, I fell in love with her bold, big, photographs and layout. Students can easily “picture walk” these stories and gather lots of information.
When my class looks closely at these books with a writer’s eye, this is what we noticed.

·      Kate always begins and ends her books saying Hello and Goodbye.
·      She writes simple sentences on each page.
·      She often begins sentences with the name of the animal.
·      She puts important words in bold colors
·      She always has an animal label/diagram at the back of the book. 

Cathryn Sill writes an amazing animal series called THE ABOUT Series 





For kindergarten, I want my students to hear books that they can envision themselves making and, this series is perfect for that.  The ABOUT series is written with just the right amount of text.  I can see kids thinking, “Hey I can write a book called “ABOUT DOGS “.

The left page has a simple sentence with lots of white space and, the right side has water colored illustrations of an animal. The flow of the information is perfect. When looking closely at the lay out, students can quickly see that Cathryn begins by telling us where the animal lives and what the animal looks like. Cathryn Sills words flow beautifully from page to page.
I love that my students can return to her books again and again and learn something new. The back of the book has an afterward that gives facts and information about each animal featured in the book.   


Happy Reading and Learning!


Sunday, March 9, 2014

Color Word Game

Here is a new board game I plan to teach my class called  Rainbow Fun
This is a dynamite game for teaching color words. 

You need to print the game board on 11X17 paper. 



Players start at home and draw cards in order to race around the board.
When you draw a "terrible trouble" card, you have to do what 
it says. 

COLOR WORD CARDS
AND
TERRIBLE TROUBLE CARDS
This game comes from the book Games for Reading by Peggy Kaye. 
This book has LOTS of great games!!

Friday, March 7, 2014

How To Writing

Here are some new How To Books teachers have shared with me.
{Thank You Stef}
How To by Julie Morstad
{Thank you Susan}

This book will spark the imagination of any five-year-old
The illustrations are BEAUTIFUL.
The text is a simple pattern on each page.
The ending of this book is perfect too. 

Transition Words
For this lesson the children had to help me put the transition words in the correct spot. This lesson comes from Linda Hoyt Mastering the Mechanics

After the lesson, I glued the words into a class big book. Students helped illustrate the pages. 


Work Work
Students practiced making transition words.
Transition Word Cards
Students can bring the word cards back to their seat during writing
time
click here for Transition Cards 
How To Anchor Charts
{Lucy Calkins}

I love how this anchor chart connects with the mentor text!
Mentor Text

HOW TO BOOK TEMPLATE
click here to see some class How To Writing 

Classroom Checklist for How To Writing
I put a + for goal and a circle around the +
if the goal was achieved


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