Informational Report Presentations and Book Reviews

We finished our 3-week unit on writing informational animal reports.  Within our Writer's Workshop, we spend some time learning how to write informational reports.  Our class took 3 weeks to study animals and publish 3 different reports on animals.  The weeks started out by voting on which animal group you would like to join. Then throughout the week students read, with a teacher, different books about their animal answering the questions:

• What are some characteristics of your animal?
• Where does your animal live?
• What are some parts of your animal you can draw and label?
• What are some facts you learned about your animal?

Then we compiled all of our new knowledge and created an informational report packet.  On the Friday of each week, we presented these reports.  We did this three different ways; by presenting in front of the whole class, by presenting in a group of 3, and by presenting to a 1st grade friend.  It was awesome to see them take ownership of their learning!

This week we started focusing on writing book reviews.  We again started with students picking the group they wanted to join based on book choice.  We reviewed 3 fractured fairy tales (which is my favorite type of children's book)!  Our reviews were so captivating that we had to spend some extra time today sharing all 3 books in class!  We hung our book reviews on our lockers so other students can ask us about our learning.  We have found how infectious our excitement for literature can be!  Check out how cute our book reviews look!