Long time no blog! Has anyone else just survived the last week of school and is finally able to take a deep breath and enjoy summer? I have so many great things to blog about and time just got away from me this last month.
We wrapped up our Sharing the Planet unit and I wanted to share one of my favorite read-aloud to discuss animal characteristics and also to hit multiple learning standards. This unit is packed full of non-fiction, so when I come across the perfect fictional text to hit our lines of inquiry I get pretty excited. The book, Fur and Feathers by Janet Halfmann is a must to add to your library, plus all these activities are perfect for a sub day.
Prior to reading the book we watched a PowerPoint presentation about animal characteristics from TpT and the link to this presentation can be found here. The kids were then given a variety of materials to match the animal to the correct skin covering. We had feathers for the bird, mesh for the snake, wax paper for the frog, and felt for the lion. They really liked this!
The following day we read the story, Fins and Feathers, and completed a sequencing activity and also a characteristic match-up from the animals covered in the text. The kids did a fantastic job being able to remember the different animals throughout the book and their characteristics. For example, the ladybug is red because it warns other animals to not eat them because it tastes bad.
We had some downtime throughout the week where the kids could draw a picture of an animal they researched for their animal reports and label their characteristics. These turned out really cute and were a great share-out and display for classroom learning.
Some other activities we completed over the week were a quick cause-and-effect check and a whole group vocabulary lesson. You can find all of these activities in the download below and by visiting my Teacher Pay Teacher shop.
I hope if you are reading this you are finished with your school year and if not hopefully your time is coming soon. Stay tuned for more posts on guided reading-aligned texts. I just finished a great book and have so many ideas spiraling through my head for next year.
No comments
Post a Comment