Biography and Text Feature Freebies

This week we began biographies in readers workshop and reports in writers workshop.  I began the week teaching the kids about a biography.

Click to Print

I introduced Wilma Rudolph from the student Anthology and followed up with the school wide book of the month: Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the Fastest Woman.  

During writers, we began working on text features.  The kids took a keen interest in learning all content thrown their way!  It just so happened that I was offered an opportunity to try Scholastic Magazine for February and March just in time for reports and life cycles.  After reading Beth Newingham's article on Non Fiction Reading Resources, I jumped at the offer.  The magazines are perfect for learning text features and their digital issues would ensure students engagement throughout the entire lessons.  With the now!Board, I was able to display and allow the kids to interact with the magazines whole group.  I decided to focus on timelines.

This article came from Feb 2012 Scholastic Issues.

I printed the PDF within Beth's article featuring 23 amazing pages of text feature posters!  

After reading Wilma Unlimited and observing photos online, we charted a few facts.  The kids went back to their anthologies to pull out the rest of their facts.  With peer and teacher conferencing, kids ordered their dated facts on a timeline and secured them with tape.  Their biographies were the best I've ever seen from 2nd graders.  

I tried to enlarge so that you can read!

To conclude biographies, we ended our week learning about George Washington Carver with our 3rd Grade FCAT Buddies.  Brainpopjr features a wonderful video on their website.  I purchased a membership early this year for a single computer at $8.00 a month.  TOTALLY WORTH IT!!  I use my laptop for my membership so that I can take it home and search for the videos and display on the white board in school.  We worked on the door last night for the school wide door decorating contest.  

Whatcha think of our door?

The kids created a list of words from the Brainpop video to describe George Washington Carver.  They teamed up with their buddies and used a Thesaurus to identify synonyms.  Our students developed wonderful vocabulary.  After, the kids wrote a biography on GWC using Fun 2B in First's unit.  Click the graphic below to link to her free unit.

I'm very excited about Dr. Seuss this coming week.  With pinterest inspired lessons, a few of my own creations, and a field trip to The Lorax on Friday...we should have too much fun!

I'm providing a link to a video about the life of Dr. Seuss. This goes along with Scholastic's March Dr. Seuss issue. For every issue of Scholastic News, there is a video that introduces the topic and gives background knowledge to the kids. 

And here is a game. It’s meant to be done after kids read the March issue “Flower Power.” The class can play it in teams and test their comprehension of the issue.  There is also a game for every single issue of Scholastic News. Many of them are like this one—reading comprehension—and others use the theme of the issue to test another skill, such as synonyms or ending sounds or math skills.

If you want to subscribe to Scholastic Magazines, you can go to this link here!