Nonfiction Animal Cards

I was browsing Target the other day and was SO EXCITED when I found these in the dollar spot...

Every year I have my class write an animal book (I will post more about this later) They choose an animal, gather research about that animal, and write a nonfiction book using the information they found. They are always really excited about this project...they LOVE learning about different animals! However, it is a struggle trying to find animal books that they can read....especially for my lower readers. 

Some of my co-workers used these cards last year and said it worked MUCH better. I am excited to try them out this year! 

Each card has a picture of the animal on the front...

 ...and information about that animal on the back.

It looks like it will be much easier for them to read, AND when I'm modeling it we will be able to go through the process MUCH faster than if we read a book about that animal.

So if you are interested in using these, hurry over to Target before they are gone!!

Nonfiction Text Features

We have been learning about nonfiction text features. We have read lots of nonfiction books, went on a nonfiction feature hunt and now we are learning to use the features in our writing! 


I saw the cutest idea on A Place Called Kindergarten where her students made their own research books using the non-fiction text features. LOVE IT! However, I wanted my students to get very familiar with all of the non-fiction text features before we got into doing research and writing our animal books. I took this idea and tweaked it and came up with this...

Click here to download a copy! Also you make sure you check out A Place Called Kindergarten's blog for her freebie!